Youth Mentoring Relationship Quality: Investigating the Role of Program Practices

Background/Purpose

The goal of formal youth mentoring programs is to create and support positive relationships that promote the healthy development of youth. Cross-program comparisons in meta-analyses show that mentoring programs employing a greater number of empirically-supported practices achieve more favorable effect sizes on multiple youth outcomes (DuBois et al., 2002). Yet very little research has investigated mechanisms by which program-level practices may yield better individual-level results for volunteer mentors and youth mentees. A systems framework for understanding youth program settings and processes posits that program practices which structure and deploy staff resources within the organizational setting influence the social processes between staff and clients in the point-of-service setting, which in turn translate to the experiences and outcomes observed in the youth development setting (Tseng & Seidman, 2007). The current study evaluates this mediational model. Specifically, it is hypothesized that greater use of recommended program practices improves staff-mentor interactions, which in turn yields more positive mentoring relationships with youth.  

Methods

The data are from an ongoing, mixed-methods, randomized trial of a program quality improvement initiative involving a diverse sample of youth mentoring programs (n=53). A random sample of 15 active mentors from each program was invited to participate in the study (n=732), and online surveys were completed by 564 participants (77% response). Mentors rated the extent to which they had experienced their mentoring program implementing 21 different actions based on the Elements of Effective Practice, national standards for mentoring practices (e.g., screening, training, matching, supporting participants). The quality of mentor-staff interaction, specifically personal bond and agreement on goals, was assessed with a modified Working Alliance Inventory (Horvath & Greenberg, 1989). The quality of the mentor-youth relationship was assessed with the security and negativity subscales of the Network of Relationships Inventory (Furman & Buhrmester, 2009) and the relationship satisfaction and commitment subscales of the Investment Model Scale (Rusbult, Martz, & Agnew, 1998). Path analyses evaluated the hypothesis for each relationship measure using mixed model regressions accounting for the nesting of respondents within programs.

Results

Mentors within programs demonstrated congruence in their ratings, with a large intraclass correlation for program practices (ICC=.33) and modest intraclass correlations on relationship measures (ICC=.05-.11). Greater exposure to program practices was strongly associated with a more positive mentor-staff working alliance. In addition, higher ratings on program practices were positively associated with mentoring relationship satisfaction, commitment, and security and inversely associated with mentor-youth relationship negativity. The mentor-staff working alliance partially mediated the associations between program practices and relationship satisfaction, commitment, and security, whereas it fully mediated the association with mentoring relationship negativity.

Conclusions/Implications 

These findings indicate that mentors who experience recommended program practices are more likely to report positive mentoring relationships and that the mentor-staff working alliance mediates this association. This support for the hypothesized model suggests that organizational quality improvement efforts emphasizing the adoption and implementation of recommended practices may result in stronger mentoring relationships that promote healthy youth development. However, further research using experimental designs is needed to test the causal pathways suggested by these findings.