Bridging Disciplinary Boundaries (January 11 - 14, 2007)

Purpose: This study describes the experiences of adult volunteers and at-risk youth in one-to-one mentoring relationships that ended prematurely. Although mentoring has been promoted as a panacea for all that ails youth today, the sobering reality is that less than half of all mentoring relationships last beyond a few months (Freedman, 1993). Further, participating in a mentoring relationship that does not go well may hold the potential to make matters worse for already vulnerable youth, as some research has indicated that youth in early terminating mentor relationships experienced decrements in functioning, including decreases in self-worth and perceptions of scholastic competence (Grossman & Rhodes, 2002; Slicker & Palmer, 1993). However, only a handful of studies of youth mentoring even broach the subject of relationships failures. This is surprising, given the attention paid to these matters in the literature on other forms of mentoring relationships, such as those formed in the workplace (e.g., Scandura, 1998) and in academic settings (e.g., Johnson & Huwe, 2003).

Method: Adult and youth participants in two volunteer mentoring programs were interviewed. In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with 20 male and female adults (predominantly white) and 12 early adolescents (racially and ethnically diverse, ages 10-13 years) who had been in mentoring relationship that ended early (within 9 months). The transcriptions of these interviews were analyzed in two ways. Employing a holistic-content approach (Lieblich, Tuval-Mashiach, & Zilber, 1998), thematic analyses were conducted with the transcripts by two coders using the qualitative analysis software ATLAS.ti. Conceptually clustered matrices (Miles & Huberman, 1994) were then constructed to detect patterns in the themes across the interviews.

Results: The analyses yielded descriptive information about why these mentoring relationships ended prematurely and the impact these early terminations had on both the youth participants and the adult volunteers. Prominent reasons for match failures included: (a) mentor or mentee abandonment, (b) unrealistic expectations for the mentoring relationship, (c) limitations in the mentors' relational skills, including bridging cultural divides, (d) family interference, (e) mentee motivation, (f) lack of agency support, and (g) poor fit between mentor and mentee. These are not mutually exclusive in the sense that two or more of these dynamics were present in many of these relationships. Mentors and youth alike described feelings of disappointment and the muting of their enthusiasm for the program.

Implications: This study provides new information for social workers who are and will be directing and serving in a rapidly growing number of mentoring programs. It offers a detailed picture of some factors contributing to the failure of a group of mentoring relationships, from the perspective of the mentors and mentees. The findings from this study highlight the complexity of adult-youth mentoring relationships and the skills that may be required of mentors in order to be successful, especially in the arena of cultural awareness. This study also offers areas for consideration by program staff in the recruitment and selection of volunteers and in the orientation, training of adult mentors and the on-going support of mentoring relationships.