Community Developmental Assets and Positive Youth Development: The Role of Natural Mentors

Building youth leadership skills and community awareness: Engagement of rural youth with a community-based leadership program

AIMS

Community leadership programs have the potential to positively impact many aspects of young people's development, as well as the community. This study, therefore, aims to understand the experiences of the young people, particularly rural youth, involved with the Western Bulldogs Youth Leadership Project (WBYLP), a 7-month program for Year-9 and Year-10 students, and if the developmental assets are a good framework to inform future program development.

METHOD

A transformative mixed-methods design was used and included surveys with 96 participants at two time points, and semistructured interviews with eight participants.

RESULTS

Quantitatively leadership significantly increased, particularly due to increases in the domains of understanding self and decision-making skills. Social competencies increased, though total developmental assets did not. Interviews identified four primary themes: Perspective taking, self-efficacy, community awareness, and decreased isolation.

CONCLUSIONS

These results indicate that participants developed both individual skills relating to leadership and social skills. The participants also developed their awareness of the issues in their community.

Does Natural Mentoring Matter? A Multilevel Meta-analysis on the Association Between Natural Mentoring and Youth Outcomes

In this meta-analytic review, we examined the relation between natural mentoring and youth outcomes in four domains: academic and vocational functioning, social-emotional development, physical health, and psychosocial problems. Natural mentoring relationships are thought to foster positive youth development and buffer against the risks associated with the tumultuous years of adolescence. Two separate meta-analyses were conducted on the presence of a natural mentor and the quality of the natural mentoring relationship, including thirty studies from 1992 to present. The findings indicated that the presence of a natural mentor was significantly associated with positive youth outcomes (r = .106). A larger effect size was found for the quality of the natural mentoring relationship in terms of relatedness, social support, and autonomy support (r = .208). The largest effect sizes were found for social-emotional development and academic and vocational functioning. Risk-status (e.g., teenage mothers, homeless youth, youth in foster care, and youth of alcoholic parents) did not moderate the relation between presence and quality of natural mentoring relationships and youth outcomes, which may indicate that natural mentors are generally beneficial for all youth regardless of risk-status. Implications for theory and practice concerning the quality of the natural mentoring relationship are discussed.

Naturally Occurring Mentorship in a National Sample of First-Generation College Goers: A Promising Portal for Academic and Developmental Success

Attending college is increasingly important to compete in this global world; however, young people whose parents did not attend college are significantly less likely to enroll in and finish college. Formal programs to support first-generation college goers are common, but not scalable to provide support to all young people who need it. Instead, mentoring that naturally occurs on these students' journeys into and out of college may be a more practical avenue for supporting their success. This study investigated the role community members, relatives, and educators play in first-generation college goers' educational outcomes. Data from 4,181 participants of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent and Adult Health were used to test differences in supports received between first-generation, continuing-generation, and non-college goers. Results demonstrated that mentorship in adolescence moderated the relationship between parental college attendance and educational attainment in adulthood. Next, findings suggested that first-generation students received less support for identity development from their mentors than continuing-generation students. This study has program implications for facilitating college attendance and fostering the development and success of first-generation students. Moreover, this project continues to concretize an emerging taxonomy of mentoring functions for youth and emerging adults.

From Treatment to Empowerment: New Approaches to Youth Mentoring

Traditional approaches to formal youth mentoring have focused primarily on improving the lives of "at-risk" youth through the assignment of individual mentors who are typically disconnected from youth's communities. Similarly, research in the field of formal mentoring has emphasized the dyadic relationship between the mentor and the mentee, with less attention paid to the broader relational contexts in which such relationships unfold. The current paper proposes a new framework that expands the scope of mentoring interventions to include approaches that build on and cultivate informal supports and empower youth to identify and reach out to networks of potential supportive adults, thus increasing the reach of youth mentoring.

The Functions and Longitudinal Outcomes of Adolescents' Naturally Occurring Mentorships

Adolescence is a time during which positive adults outside the familial context may be most influential to development. A growing body of research on naturally occurring mentors has found favorable outcomes for youth who have these types of positive adult figures in their lives. Less is known, however, about how these naturally occurring mentors influence youths' development in the long-term. This study examines the long-term outcomes related to having a naturally occurring community mentor in adolescence. Results from longitudinal analyses of a nationally representative sample of adolescents revealed that having a mentor in adolescence was related to higher educational attainment, lower criminal activity, higher psychological well-being (i.e., optimism, self-efficacy, and lack of depressive symptoms), and greater romantic relationship satisfaction in adulthood. Additionally, a taxonomy of mentoring functions was created from qualitative responses and drawing upon the youth, work, and academic mentoring literature. This taxonomy aims to serve as a framework for understanding the functions of youth mentors to provide a foundation for future research. Implications of findings and future directions are considered.