Natural and Formal Mentors Among Youth in Foster Care: How Do Mentor Type and Relationship Dynamics Explain Variance in the Quality of the Mentoring Relationship?

Background and Purpose: Youth in foster care are at increased risk for experiencing poorer well-being outcomes as compared to their non-foster peers.  However, research suggests that the presence of a caring, supportive nonparental adult, such as a mentor, may function as a protective factor, offsetting some of the risk that these vulnerable youth face.  Research identifies a positive association between mentored youth and improved psychosocial, behavioral, and academic outcomes, and greater effects are associated with higher quality mentoring relationships, leading researchers to investigate for whom and under what circumstances such relationships may be present.  Among youth in foster care, both naturally occurring and programmatically matched, formal mentoring relationships have been investigated, though past studies have not explored how mentor type or relationship dynamics may explain variance in the quality of mentoring relationships for this population.  Thus, this study investigated: To what extent do mentor type and relationship dynamics explain variance in the quality of the mentoring relationship for adolescent and emerging adult youth in and aging out of foster care, controlling for demographic characteristics?  What barriers and facilitators of a quality mentoring relationship do natural and formal mentors of youth in foster care experience and identify?

Methods: This study employed a mixed methods sequential explanatory design whereby the first arm of the study was quantitative and explored the relationship between a number of explanatory variables and the variance in the quality of the mentoring relationship among naturally mentored and formally mentored foster youth. The second arm was qualitative and elicited a more in-depth and nuanced understanding of mentors’ experiences.  Survey data were gathered from 444 mentors of foster youth across the United States, and interview data were then obtained from 8 high and low scoring natural and formal mentors.  Multinomial logistic regression models were used to assess variance in the quality of the mentoring relationship, and an a priori coding structure was used to interpret the qualitative interview data.

Results: Findings from this study indicate that naturally occurring mentoring relationships were associated with longer mentoring relationships, whereas programmatically supported, formal mentors were associated with higher perceived efficacy.  Internal dynamics of closeness and compatibility were positively associated with characteristics of quality relationships, such as longer relationships and more frequent and consistent contact.  External dynamics, such as interference (i.e., personal/logistical stressors) decreased the length of the mentoring relationship.  Finally, mentoring relationships among youth in foster care tended to benefit from a primary growth-focused component with an accompanying fun-focus. 

Conclusions and Implications: The findings from this study support several practice implications, namely the promotion of hybrid mentoring among youth in foster care.  Both the qualitative and the quantitative data suggest that there are elements of naturally occurring and programmatically supported mentoring relationships that may be associated with higher quality mentoring relationships among youth in foster care.  Rather than conceiving of mentor type as a binary construct, programs and practitioners should consider mentoring relationships on a spectrum of naturally occurring to formally matched and should be flexible to support mentors across this spectrum.