Session: Natural Mentorship for Foster Care Youth: Prevalence, Impact, and Programmatic Support (Society for Social Work and Research 21st Annual Conference - Ensure Healthy Development for all Youth)

A small but growing body of research indicates that natural mentoring relationships can be of significant support to youth while in and as they transition out of the foster care system. Youth who report having such support tend to have better mental health outcomes, lower rates of arrest or violence, and higher educational attainment, compared to youth who do not. Yet more work is needed to understand the nature of these relationships and how they promote better outcomes for youth. Also needed is a better understanding of whether and how programs can effectively support youth in developing such connections.

This symposium will offer findings from four studies examining the role of natural mentors in the lives of foster youth and how programs may be able to support the development of these relationships. The first paper describes rates of both relative and non-relative natural mentorship among youth with a history of foster care, and the nature and quality of these relationships. Also examined is natural mentoring's association to outcomes related to youth being prepared to live on their own. The second paper delves deeper into the nature of the relationships former foster youth form with natural mentors, specifically examining the frequency of contact and both personal and environmental level predictors of emotional closeness and relatedness with mentors. The third paper shifts the focus to programmatic interventions aimed at fostering youth’s connections with natural mentors. The first of the last two papers presents findings from a descriptive qualitative interview study of an innovative approach to matching youth with adult mentors called youth initiated mentoring (YIM), in which mentoring programs formalize relationships with supportive adults in the youth’s existing social network. This study examines youth’s experiences of these relationships and highlights the potential promise of YIM to increase youth engagement in mentoring and to provide youth high quality and impactful support. The final paper evaluates the feasibility of Caring Adults ‘R’ Everywhere (C.A.R.E.), a novel, child welfare-based intervention designed to facilitate and support the development of natural mentor relationships among aging out youth. Together, the research represented in these papers contributes to our growing understanding of the role of natural mentors in the lives of foster youth and the ways that social workers may be able to promote the development of these important relationships.