ORI GIN AL PA PER

Mentoring Youth at High Risk: The Perspectivesof Professional Mentors

Davielle Lakind • J. Mark Eddy • Adrienne Zell

� Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014

AbstractBackground Youth mentoring programs rely largely on volunteers, but youth facing

significant risks may be poor candidates for volunteer-based interventions. Full-time

‘‘professional’’ mentors in highly structured programs may be better suited to partner

effectively with such youth and their families, but few studies examine professional

mentoring interventions. Because of mentoring’s inherent flexibility, mentors’ role con-

ceptualizations can profoundly influence the nature of their work. Serving as a professional

mentor may have important implications for how mentors conceptualize and perform their

role.

Objective This qualitative study examined the role conceptions of professional mentors

serving at-risk youth.

Methods Semi-structured interviews with mentors were transcribed, coded, and sub-

jected to thematic analysis.

Results Mentors described the importance of ‘‘professionalism’’ in prioritizing mentor-

ing, expending considerable effort, and performing difficult or unpleasant tasks. They

reported that serving multiple children full-time enabled them to rapidly build expertise,

that credibility and authority granted them because of their professional status facilitated

their work across multiple key contexts, and that their expertise and long-term commitment

facilitated the development of deep relationships. Mentors perceived their role as highly

challenging but reported high self-efficacy. They described high multifaceted organiza-

tional support, a community for youth, and an individualized child focus.

D. Lakind (&)University of Illinois at Chicago, 1007 W. Harrison Street, MC 285, Chicago, IL 60607, USAe-mail: rlakin3@uic.edu

J. M. EddyUniversity of Washington School of Social Work, Seattle, WA, USA

A. ZellImpactivism, Portland, OR, USA

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Child Youth Care ForumDOI 10.1007/s10566-014-9261-2

Conclusions A mentoring model delivered by experienced professional mentors may

hold promise for working with youth at high risk. The role conceptualizations of mentors

and the organizational culture within which mentors work may be important in helping

youth succeed.

Keywords Mentoring � Youth � Qualitative research � Preventive intervention

Introduction

Youth mentoring is characterized as an individualized, supportive relationship between a

young person and non-parental adult (DuBois and Karcher 2005; Keller and Pryce 2010).

Today, the majority of mentors are volunteers, but some programs have crafted alternative

approaches in an attempt to better meet the needs of specialty populations. In this study, we

focus on ‘‘professional’’ mentors, serving in a long-term full-time paid capacity, who work

with small rosters of youth perceived to be at high risk for problem behaviors and negative

outcomes during adolescence and emerging adulthood. We use a qualitative approach to

explore the perceptions of professional mentors regarding their full-time employee status

and the work they do with youth.

Mentoring Challenges

Advocates claim that mentoring can be a key determinant in altering the life course of

youth at risk for negative life outcomes. However, a meta-analysis of 55 youth mentoring

program evaluations by DuBois et al. (2002), and a follow up meta-analysis of 71 youth

mentoring program evaluations by DuBois et al. (2011), found only a modest short-term

benefit of mentoring. They also found significant variation in outcomes across programs.

Unfortunately, studies of long-term benefits were few, and no conclusions could be drawn.

The combination of modest effects and wide variability suggest that mentoring youth is a

challenging endeavor.

Recruiting and retaining mentors is a key limitation to the creation of effective men-

toring relationships (Wandersman et al. 2006). Typically, the number of children

requesting mentors far exceeds the supply (Bruce and Bridgeland 2014). Further, roughly

half of formal mentoring relationships end within a few months (Rhodes 2002). Sadly,

failing to overcome the challenges to forming lasting relationships can have significant

consequences for youth, including iatrogenic effects. For example, in a study of over 1,000

youth involved with the Big Brothers Big Sisters program, Grossman and Rhodes (2002)

found that youth whose relationships with volunteer mentors terminated within a year

derived fewer benefits than those with longer lasting relationships. Youth in particularly

short matches actually demonstrated decrements in both self-worth and scholastic

competence.

Characteristics of both mentors and mentees, and the interaction between the two, may

facilitate or obstruct relationship durability. Notably, Grossman and Rhodes (2002) found

that married mentors between the ages of 26 and 30 years old were more likely to be

involved in short relationships. The heightened challenges of retaining mentors within a

demographic group that may be particularly prone to transition and flux highlights that

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certain volunteer mentors struggle with balancing the overall time commitment, and the

need for frequent and consistent contact with youth, with their other personal and pro-

fessional commitments. In such cases, maintaining a mentor–mentee relationship over the

long term may simply be untenable.

Another important, but often neglected, factor that might mitigate against a durable

relationship is that mentors may have minimal experience interacting with youth, and may

be unprepared for the challenges they will inevitably face. College students serving as

youth mentors have reported less confidence regarding their effectiveness after a period of

time working in the field (Hughes et al. 2010). Mentors involved in ‘‘failed’’ relation-

ships—indexed by whether the relationship had ended before 1 year—described the gap

between their expectations of ‘‘making a difference’’ and ‘‘giving back’’ and the difficult

realities of developing a bond with a youth (Spencer 2007).

Such challenges may be magnified when partnering mentors with youth living in high-

risk circumstances. Potential mentors might be reluctant in the first place to partner with

children with significant challenges, but even willing and well-intentioned volunteers may

lack the training and skills to navigate these potentially complicated relationships and

provide youth with the appropriate acceptance and support they need to thrive (Smith

2004). Different types and degrees of youth challenges may also lead to different out-

comes. For example, Grossman and Rhodes (2002) found that mentees with challenging

personal histories, such as those who had experienced abuse or who struggled with mental

health issues, were more likely to have short term mentoring relationships. A recent study

of seven mentoring programs found that mentors matched with youth at relatively high

individual-level risk reported greater difficulty dealing with challenging youth behaviors,

while mentors matched with youth with relatively high environmental risk described

particular difficulties getting support from the families of youth as well as meeting with

youth consistently (Herrera et al. 2013).

The challenges of mentoring higher-risk youth seem to parallel those experienced by

other youth service providers. For example, in a study exploring stress for teachers in high

poverty urban elementary schools, teachers described the unexpected intensity and fre-

quency of students’ challenging behavior, as well as the interference to instruction caused

by such behavior (Shernoff et al. 2011). Placement success for children in the foster care

system is also negatively associated with children’s emotional and behavioral problems

(Redding et al. 2000), suggesting the challenges foster parents face managing behavior.

Therapeutic foster care providers have also reported that they feared or struggled with

some parents of children in their care (Jivanjee 1999), and Cunningham and Henggeler

(1999) note that challenges for therapists providing multisystemic therapy may include fear

for personal safety, and difficulty understanding clients’ seemingly unproductive behavior.

Both individual-level and environmental-level challenges, then, seem to test service pro-

viders and potentially obstruct positive outcomes across service modalities.

Training, Support, and Experience

Youth may derive more benefits from mentoring when their mentors are better equipped to

serve them. Ensuring this involves not only the proper selection of mentors, but also the

provision of appropriate levels of training and ongoing support. In their meta-analysis,

DuBois et al. (2002) found that programs that utilized mentors with a background in a

helping role or profession demonstrated larger effects than those that did not specify such

requirements, suggesting that when mentors come with their own skills and experience

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they may be better able to support youth. In one study, mentors’ perceptions of training

quality informed their pre-match self-efficacy, which in turn predicted youth reports of

relationship quality (Parra et al. 2002). In another, mentors who received more training

perceived their relationships with youth to be of higher quality (Herrera et al. 2000). More

broadly, more frequent and/or higher quality support from program staff have been found

to positively impact mentors’ perceptions of their relationships with their mentees (Herrera

et al. 2000) as well as relationship duration (Herrera et al. 2007). Mentors have also

reported the negative impact of inadequate agency support on the mentoring relationship

and the experience of serving as a mentor (Spencer 2007).

DuBois et al. (2002) also found that programs that provided ongoing training for

mentors, established clear expectations regarding frequency of contact and relationship

duration, and systematically monitored mentor–mentee activities demonstrated larger

effects than those that did not specify such requirements. DuBois et al. (2011) found that

effectiveness was greatest when mentor roles included both an advocacy component

(working on behalf of the youth outside of the relationship) and a teaching and information

provision component, suggesting that it may be beneficial to provide guidance and

structure for mentors in these particular areas.

Importantly, and not surprisingly, recent work suggests that mentors’ training and

supervision needs differ depending on the risk level of their mentee. Herrera et al. (2013)

found that mentors partnered with higher risk versus lower risk youth reported a greater

need for help addressing the social, emotional, and behavioral issues of the youth they

served, interacting with their families, and navigating social service systems on their

behalf. In summary, the results of a variety of studies suggest that significant organiza-

tional investment is needed to select and support mentors and to structure mentor-youth

relationships. Clearly, such investment may need to be increased when a program serves

youth at high risk for adjustment problems.

Paid Mentoring

The significant organizational investment needed to select and support mentors and

structure relationships may stretch some programs designed to utilize volunteers. More

intensive models of mentoring may more adequately address the needs of youth, and

especially of youth at relatively high risk. Compensating mentors for their time is one

strategy that has been tried to overcome some of the difficulties with volunteer mentoring.

The subfield of paid mentoring does not represent a monolithic intervention, however, but

rather a cross-section of programs that vary considerably from each other.

Paid mentoring can encompass programs that provide stipends to support a few hours of

mentoring per week to programs that employ mentors full time. For example, the Expe-

rience Corps program provides stipends to mentors, who are older adults brought into

elementary schools to provide mentoring and tutoring to struggling readers for roughly

15 h per week (Morrow-Howell et al. 2009). Mentors with the Jumpstart program are

college students who can receive Federal Work-Study as part of their college financial aid

package for their 8–12 h of service per week, as well as additional compensation through

AmeriCorps if they complete 300 h of service (Adler and Trepanier-Street 2007). In

contrast, mentors with the New York-based Children’s Village WAY Home Program are

full-time employees who work with caseloads of 20–25 youth transitioning out of resi-

dential services for at least a year, but frequently up to 5 years (Smith 2004).

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Unfortunately, relatively few studies have been conducted on paid mentoring programs.

Studies as of 2009 were summarized in DuBois et al.’s (2011) meta-analysis, with no

indication of differential program effects between programs in which mentors were

compensated for their time and those in which they volunteered. With the wide range of

program models included within paid and unpaid mentoring, it is not surprising that no

differences were found between these general ‘‘types’’ of mentoring.

Even fewer studies have examined the possible impacts of paying mentors. There is

some indication that mentors who receive compensation may fulfill their roles differently

than those who do not. For example, in a study examining the effect of the stipend status of

mentors with Experience Corps, McBride et al. (2011) found that stipended volunteers

served for more hours per week and for longer periods of time than non-stipended vol-

unteers. Stipended volunteers also completed the program at significantly higher rates, and

reported higher perceived benefits of participation both for themselves and for youth.

McBride et al. (2011) examined differences in the perspectives and behaviors of vol-

unteers whose roles, in many ways, appeared similar across compensated and uncom-

pensated versions. Some programs have crafted mentoring models in which mentors are

hired as full-time employees. In these cases, the compensation is not just an extra incentive

or reward, but a standard and necessary facet of a professional role, which may also include

differing duties and expectations. Researchers and programs describing full-time, paid

mentors have referred to them as ‘‘professional’’ mentors (see Smith 2004).

Friends of the Children

The program of interest in this paper, Friends of the Children (FOTC), is a version of paid

mentoring. Because FOTC mentors come to the program with relevant education and

experience working with youth, because they are extensively trained and closely super-

vised, and because they are employed full time with benefits, we classify FOTC as a

‘‘professional’’ mentoring program.

FOTC is built on the principle of promoting child resilience and competence through

establishing a close, healthy, ongoing relationship with a caring adult. Five independent

non-profit FOTC ‘‘chapters’’ located throughout the US engage youth through long-term

mentoring relationships (Eddy et al. 2013). Working within communities facing notable

challenges, including poverty and violence, FOTC aims to select the children perceived by

multiple adults as most vulnerable for future adjustment problems. Vulnerability is inferred

by the presence of a high number of individual risk factors (e.g., aggression, social

withdrawal or isolation, emotional lability, depression, and poor academic functioning) and

environmental risk factors (e.g., family members with substance abuse problems, histories

of incarceration, involvement with child services, and chronic unemployment) and a low

number of protective factors (Eddy et al. 2013; cf. Rhodes 1994).

The program begins when children first enter elementary school. In partnership with

neighborhood-based public schools, kindergarten and first grade aged children considered

appropriate for the program are identified by FOTC mentors and supervisors following

6 weeks (54–72 h) of direct observation in the classroom, cafeteria, and playground of all

kindergarten and first grade students in a school whose caregivers have consented, as well

as close consultation with teachers and other school personnel. FOTC staff aim to identify

children who they believe will face significantly more individual and environmental

challenges than their same sex peers within their schools, but who have the potential to

excel through their involvement with FOTC. Children with considerable cognitive deficits,

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autism spectrum disorder, or extreme behavioral or emotional problems are excluded from

consideration, as it is thought that they are not as well positioned to benefit from the

program and most likely require more intensive clinical intervention.

Once families agree (and as long as they continue to agree) for their children to par-

ticipate, FOTC guarantees that as long as children live in the chapter service area they will

have an FOTC mentor continuously involved in their lives for the next 12 years. Service

areas are drawn broadly, and in most cities encompass up to a 30-mile radius of the FOTC

office. The long-term goals of FOTC are threefold for each child: school success, including

high school graduation or GED with a plan for the future; positive youth engagement,

including avoiding involvement with the juvenile justice system; and pursuing a healthy

and developmentally appropriate lifestyle, including avoiding early parenthood.

Mentors must have both a bachelor’s degree and previous experience working with

vulnerable or challenging youth. At hire, mentors are asked to make an initial 3-year

service commitment. They undergo a weeklong pre-service training program in which they

are given background information on the inception and mission of the organization;

introduced to the strengths-based approach to working with children and families; and

provided opportunities for facilitated discussions and role plays around issues such as using

a culturally competent approach with children and families, advocating for children in

school settings, collaborating with teachers, and working with children and families facing

a constellation of challenges. Prior to working alone with children, mentors then participate

in several ‘‘ride alongs’’ with experienced mentors and the children with whom they work.

Mentors are matched to children by gender. Those paired with elementary school aged

children generally work with eight children at a time; mentors to adolescents typically have

twelve to fourteen mentees. During children’s early years in the program, mentors meet

several hours per week with each child, ideally at least once in the school setting and once

on an outing or on site at the FOTC chapter. Mentors have significant autonomy in

selecting and structuring activities, but are encouraged to design activities that build on

youth ‘‘sparks’’ (interests or passions), target social and emotional development, and

address children’s struggles (which are often in the academic domain). Mentors are

encouraged in their training and meetings to confer primacy on building, strengthening,

and maintaining positive relationships with their mentees as well as with their mentees’

families, teachers, and other key individuals. Also emphasized in training is the importance

of serving as a positive role model and of acting as a source of unconditional love,

encouragement, safety, and support. As children enter their adolescent years, the program

shifts away from predominately one-on-one activities towards group activities with mul-

tiple mentors and mentees, but mentors still keep in close individual contact with youth. To

the best of our knowledge, the FOTC program represents one of the most intensive

mentoring models currently utilized in the field.

Mentors’ Perceptions of Their Work

FOTC, like most other youth mentoring programs, is predicated on the notion that positive

youth outcomes are mediated primarily by the development and maintenance of meaningful

mentor–mentee relationships (Rhodes 2005). This is in contrast to most other youth focused

prevention programs, which focus on the development of the skills and knowledge of youth,

or those who interact with youth, and which are gained through the delivery of practices

specified in protocols and/or curricula (Keller and Pryce 2010). In relationship-oriented

work, the role of mentor may incorporate aspects of parents, teachers, therapists, and

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friends, yet the mentor role is unique from each of these (Goldner and Mayseless 2008).

Because mentoring is formulated as a flexible, relationship focused intervention designed to

be responsive to an individual youth’s needs, strengths, and interests, there is room for the

perceptions of mentors about their work to play a role in defining the nature of the men-

toring, in shaping the interactions of the mentor with youth, and in influencing mentor-youth

relationship quality, duration, and youth outcomes (Morrow and Styles 1995).

Unfortunately, research on the perceptions of paid mentors is slim. Studies of profes-

sional mentoring are particularly scarce. Although a few studies have examined various

aspects of the perceptions of paid mentors (e.g., Adler and Trepanier-Street 2007;

Broussard et al. 2006; Morrow-Howell et al. 2009), these studies have not addressed

whether mentors’ experiences or perceptions were informed by their paid status. In fact,

McBride et al. (2011) study of stipended volunteers seems to be the only work on that

topic. Mentors may, however, attach different meaning to work they do as employees of an

organization, rather than volunteers. Further examination of the perceptions and experi-

ences of professional mentors regarding their professional status may enhance our

understanding of this subtype of youth mentoring.

Study Design and Research Questions

Here we report findings of an exploratory, descriptive study using qualitative methods in

order to begin to better understand the phenomenology of mentoring youth, and specifi-

cally youth at high risk for future adjustment problems, when working in a professional

role. Given how little is known about the impact of various mentor qualities and role

features on mentor perceptions and approaches, qualitative methodology was deemed

appropriate in order to generate a rich description of the phenomenon. Qualitative inquiry

allowed us to generate ideas through the research process, rather than confirm a priori

hypotheses. We sought to better understand how professional mentors perceived their role

in light of their full-time paid status, as well as their perceptions of their organization. Our

research questions were as follows:

1. How does serving in a professional capacity impact how mentors conceive of their

role? How does it impact their self-efficacy in steering at-risk youth toward positive

outcomes?

2. How does a professional mentor program model and organizational structure impact

how mentors experience their role? How do paid mentors describe their organization’s

effectiveness in steering youth at high risk toward positive outcomes?

Method

Setting

This study was conducted as part of an ongoing multisite randomized controlled trial of

FOTC (Eddy et al. 2013). One site participated, the New York City chapter. Established in

2001, the chapter primarily serves children living in the Harlem neighborhood of the

borough of Manhattan. The population surrounding the Harlem-based public schools that

collaborate with the FOTC program comprises low-income African American, Hispanic/

Latino, and West African immigrant families. At the time the study was conducted, the

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chapter employed six men and seven women mentors serving 112 youth between the ages

of 5 and 17 years old. The racial/ethnic makeup of program youth at the time of the study

was 71 % African American, 22 % Hispanic/Latino, and 7 % first generation or immigrant

of West African descent. Over 66 % of the youth served by the program lived below the

poverty line, and 99 % qualified for free/reduced lunch at their schools.

Mentors employed by the chapter all had bachelor’s degrees from 4-year colleges and at

least 2 years of experience working or volunteering with children, 1 year of which was

specifically with vulnerable or challenging youth. Since the program was established,

through the summer of 2011 when the study was conducted (i.e., a period of 10 years), the

average length of employment of a mentor was 40.3 months (SD = 23.2). This value

includes both mentors employed at the time of the study and those who no longer worked

for the organization.

Study Design

Participants

Mentors who had been employed in the role of FOTC mentor for at least 1 year (N = 9)

were recruited to participate. This cut-off was used because we sought to understand the

perceptions of professional mentors who had worked in this capacity long enough to

undergo a range of mentoring experiences. These mentors had already spent months

working to build relationships with youth and their families, and ideally even the mentors

who had worked the least amount of time had developed some sense of what their role

comprised, not only on a week-to-week basis, but also how it changed over time. All

eligible mentors agreed to participate. All mentors had bachelor’s degrees. The modal

degree was in the arts or sciences, such as psychology, sociology, or social work. Mentors

reported between 2 and 9 years of prior professional experience working with children:

five in school settings, two in after-school programs, and two in community-based pre-

vention service programs. Only two mentors reported prior experience serving as mentors

with a formal volunteer mentoring program.

The average length of employment for mentors in this study was 3.8 years

(range = 1.7–7.7 years). The average age for mentors was 33.1 years (range = 25–49 -

years). Six mentors were men, and three were women. Three mentors identified as His-

panic/Latino, five as African American, and one as Asian Indian American. Two had

additional supervisory roles within the chapter. Three mentors worked with adolescents,

and had an average roster of thirteen youth each. Four mentors worked with children

between the ages of 5 and 11 years, each with eight children on their rosters.

Interview

A 14-item structured interview protocol was developed to explore multiple aspects of the

ways in which mentors conceptualized their role, as well as their thoughts regarding the

organization that employed them (see ‘‘Appendix’’ for the interview guide). Example

prompts included, ‘‘Do you think it is important that FOTC employs professional mentors

instead of utilizing volunteer mentors? Why or why not?’’ and ‘‘What education, training,

support, and supervision do you think is absolutely essential for professional mentors to

serve at-risk youth effectively?’’ These questions were designed to elicit mentors’ views

regarding their mentoring experiences, as well as their opinions regarding the relative

importance of various facets of their roles. We asked mentors to compare their sense of

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their role to volunteer mentors and other youth workers, as well as to compare their sense

of their organization to volunteer mentoring organizations and to other programs

employing paid youth workers. We employed this approach in order to identify perceptions

and experiences mentors distinguish as unique to their role and organization versus those

they identify as common across roles and organizations targeting positive youth outcomes.

Procedure

Human participants protections approval from the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of the

Oregon Social Learning Center was secured prior to conducting this study. This IRB

provided oversight throughout the study. Following informed consent meetings with each

participant, structured interviews were conducted in a private interview room and audio-

recorded. Interviews generally lasted 1 h, but ranged from 40 min to over 2 h. Participants

received $75 to compensate them for their time.

Coding and Analysis

Interviews were transcribed by the first author. Transcripts were analyzed using thematic

analysis techniques as described by Braun and Clarke (2006). In the first part of this

iterative process, the first author generated initial codes based on the interview protocol,

then revised and refined these codes through group discussion with the second and third

authors and created a codebook. Coding was then conducted with the aid of Dedoose web-

based qualitative analysis software (Lieber 2009). Three research assistants recruited from

a local master’s degree program in psychology, along with the first author, comprised the

coding team. The assistants, two women and one man, were not familiar with FOTC and

did not have personal experience with any formal mentoring programs. Following several

meetings to discuss the project and coding scheme, the assistants were trained to reliability

in the coding system using training sessions prepared by the first author, with input from

the other authors, in the Dedoose Training Center, a feature that allowed project leaders to

generate reliability tests based on select codes and sample excerpts from the data. Dedoose

calculates both a pooled Cohen’s Kappa for inter-rater reliability across all codes in the test

and a Cohen’s Kappa for each individual code. Across all codes in all tests in the training

sessions, a high level of interrater agreement was established (pooled Cohen’s Kappa for

all codes = 0.91; Kappas for individual tests, range = 0.81–0.96). Once a high level of

agreement was obtained and maintained across practice sessions, two coders analyzed and

coded each interview. Interrater agreement during the final coding was high and within the

same range as at the end of training. After all interviews were coded, overarching themes

were initially identified by the first author via a process of reading and rereading all

excerpts to which a given code had been applied and looking for patterns. Ongoing dis-

cussions between the first, second, and third author regarding the emerging themes led to

their refinement. Themes reflected in the majority of the mentor interviews are highlighted

below.

Results

A variety of themes appeared in the majority of interviews. Table 1 displays the umbrella

categories and themes we identified. Table 1 also indicates whether mentors perceived

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these themes as unique to FOTC, or as common across various forms of mentoring.

Themes are described in detail below, and illustrative quotes are provided.

Mentors’ Perceptions of Role and Self-Efficacy

Six themes related to mentors’ perceptions of their roles in light of serving as professionals

were identified. These themes were as follows: mentor qualities; intensive time commit-

ment; caseload; involvement in multiple contexts; close relationship with youth; and

challenges. Overall, mentors’ descriptions of their roles and their challenges reflected their

sense of their role as intensive, involved, and demanding.

Mentor Qualities

Mentors described a number of qualities they believed they possessed that were crucial to

their effectiveness. All nine mentors described the importance of professionalism as a

critical feature of their mentoring approach, which translated, first, into consistency: ‘‘In

order to have that strong relationship in the work that we do helps the children move

forward and identify what’s going on in their lives that they need, being there consistently

is part of being professional; it’s very important.’’ Mentors also described a sense of

bringing a high level of commitment and effort to their work as a facet of their profes-

sionalism. One mentor with considerable experience as a natural mentor described the

effort he expended on behalf of his FOTC mentees: ‘‘As a paid mentor I’m probably going

to exhaust myself looking for those resources. I don’t think I would really exhaust myself

as a natural mentor. I would try, but I don’t think I would make ten phone calls and six

emails trying to get one camp.’’ Mentors also described diligence in the face of challenging

or unpleasant tasks because of their professionalism: ‘‘A lot of times you just need to suck

it up and do stuff that you don’t want to do because it’s for the good of the kid.’’

Mentors described a variety of other important qualities for professional mentors to

possess that they felt facilitated effective connections with the children and families with

whom they worked. These ‘‘personal virtues’’ included patience, flexibility, good listening

skills and empathy, love, compassion, trustworthiness, respect, humor, and the ability to

have fun. Relatedly, eight out of nine mentors emphasized the importance of child-related

expertise and prior experience with youth work for fulfilling their role successfully. For

example, one said,

You need to have knowledge of kids, and how to interact with kids. I hate the

assumption that people think anybody could work with kids, because it’s not true at

all. Anybody could work with kids, but they’re not going to do it well.

Intensive Time Commitment

All mentors emphasized that the time-commitment for their mentoring role was uniquely

intensive because it was both full-time and long-term. The greater investment of time

week-to-week translated into a heightened priority and investment that they granted

mentoring. Mentors also described the full-time nature of the role as bolstering the

effectiveness of the intervention. One mentor with prior experience as a volunteer mentor

with two different agencies said:

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You need to have 40 hours a week to think about these kids if you actually want to

do it well. These kids are involved in other programs, where I’m sure it’s more like

other mentor programs, or after-school programs, and those programs are great, but I

don’t think they’re as beneficial as this program.

In discussing the 3-year verbal commitment asked of all incoming mentors, eight said it

drew them to the organization and their job initially, was a necessary and positive feature,

and was unique to their role as far as they knew. One mentor who favored the 3-year

commitment explained that the organization’s commitment to him for at least 3 years

allowed him to pass a sense of stability on to his mentees. The other seven framed it in

terms of the benefits to the children. For example:

Studies have shown that especially with the demographics of children that we work

with, people that are in a child’s life for a year and then out is actually more

detrimental, because it’s just another person that was in and out. So I really like the

fact that people have to work here 3 years, and you’re really building that bond. Plus,

I’ve noticed that this year with my girls is completely different than the other two

years. I feel like this is the year that I’m actually seeing my girls and who they really

are, and they’re really comfortable with me, and they know me.

The one mentor who expressed reservations about the 3-year commitment said he

understood the benefits of staying in a child’s life for several years, but worried that

qualified candidates might be disinclined to apply for a position with such an extensive

time commitment, and that mentors who did sign on might then find it untenable to remain

there for 3 years. He explained that a mentor overwhelmed by the realities of the job might

quit immediately if faced with a 3-year commitment, whereas that mentor might feel able

to stick it out for a shorter time.

Table 1 FOTC mentor perceptions of role and program

Umbrella categories, themes, and subthemes Unique to FOTCmodel?

Role

Mentor qualities

Professionalism Yes

Personal virtues (patience, flexibility, trustworthiness, empathy, love, fun,compassion, respect, humor)

No

Child-related expertise Yes

Intensive time commitment Yes

Caseload Yes

Involvement in multiple contexts Yes

Close relationships with youth No

Challenges No

Program model and organizational structure

Organizational support Yes

Twelve-year commitment to youth Yes

Community for youth Yes

Individualized child focus No

Umbrella categories are italicized. Themes and subthemes appear in regular typeface; subthemes are indented.

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Caseload

Four mentors noted that they were able to impact more children simply by working with a

whole roster of children in comparison to a volunteer serving only one child. Five mentors

also explained that working with a number of children allowed them to accrue experience

and expertise quickly. They said this had proved invaluable in being confronted with the

wide range of issues that mentors at FOTC face with their youth. The mentor with

experience at two volunteer mentoring agencies said, ‘‘You’re just constantly facing stuff,

so I feel like I’ve learned so much just in my 3 years that I don’t think I could ever learn at

a volunteer mentoring agency.’’ On the other hand, mentors all noted their relatively small

caseloads in comparison to other paid youth work positions. They felt this enabled them to

form deeper personal connections with their mentees, as they could focus more hours of

each week on each mentee.

Involvement in Multiple Contexts

Several mentors said they felt a crucial feature of their role as professional mentors was the

ability to cross over into multiple settings key to their mentees’ development, and the

connections they were able to form within these settings with families of the young people

on their rosters, and with other service providers. One explained the effect of this extension

into multiple realms of the children’s lives on his ability to serve his mentees:

Before this job I’ve never really consistently been in a classroom, or consistently

been in a child’s home. I think being able to see the environment they grow up in and

the school atmosphere that they’re in helps you understand where the child is coming

from and why they might have certain struggles with certain things. And being able

to understand that helps you know how to work with the kid.

Mentors emphasized that it was valuable that they entered into these realms as pro-

fessionals: ‘‘It holds more weight when we try to advocate for the youth.’’

Close Relationships with Youth

All mentors said they believed that the youth with whom they worked considered them

important people in their lives: several spoke about the trust the children with whom they

worked had in them, and several spoke about being important role models. Mentors

reported that the facets of their role highlighted in the themes above—professionalism and

youth-related competencies, intensive time commitment, relatively small caseload, and

engagement across multiple contexts—all fostered close relationships with youth.

Challenges

The other side of the considerable investment and close relationship that mentors described

was the emotionally taxing nature of the job, which all nine mentors reported as one of the

most significant challenges of the role, and which all felt was especially difficult because

they served in a full-time, long-term capacity.

You just get more involved, so it’s a lot more stressful. You take it to heart when

something doesn’t go right. And there’s a lot more chances to mess up, so there’s

more feeling bad when you know that you didn’t do the right thing.

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Another said, ‘‘Sometimes it can be a little bit overwhelming, having the responsibility

of kids calling you sometimes with crises, and feeling like you’re obligated to help them.’’

Additionally, mentors described the challenge of drawing boundaries because they were

professionals: ‘‘It’s really hard to know where you’re overstepping, or if you’re not doing

enough when you’re getting paid to do it. Sometimes I think I should have pushed a lot

harder; sometimes I think I push too much.’’ Mentors also explained that the demands of

the multi-faceted nature of the role as performed by a professional could be frustrating:

You need to be an expert in everything. I think it’s great that we’re given autonomy,

and I definitely understand why, because all kids’ needs are different. But I feel like

sometimes people are shooting in the dark a little bit, and that can make it stressful.

Despite extolling the virtues of their relatively small caseload, eight out of nine mentors

reported that they would prefer an even smaller one. They described their workload as

heavy and stressful, and said their effectiveness was negatively impacted because they felt

unable to attend to all of their mentees’ needs. As one explained it:

For the mentor that cares, that really is dealing with the family issues, really dealing

with the hospital issues, with the doctors, with the principal, whether he’s going to

get left back or not—like really diving in and getting your hands dirty? Eight is way

too much.

Critically, however, these professional mentors felt they were well equipped to handle

the burdens of their role, and eight mentors felt it was especially important that FOTC

employed full-time paid mentors in light of the fact that the program select children

perceived to be at high risk for future problems. One mentor attributed this perceived

difference in effectiveness under pressure to the experience that FOTC mentors accrued.

Before you know it, you thought you were going to be a volunteer for six months,

and you’re a volunteer for one month because you’re blown away. Which has

happened, speaking to people at [Volunteer-based Mentoring Agency]. Some people

get blown away by some of the stories they heard, and they’re stories that we’ve

probably heard for years now, and we can kind of roll with the punches.

Another mentor explained that framing the challenges of the role in terms of a pro-

fessional commitment made FOTC mentors more likely to try to overcome complicated,

delicate, or insurmountable-feeling obstacles:

Professional mentors, 3-year commitment, getting paid for it—it keeps a person

around longer. And they know that this is a commitment that they made; they can’t

just up and decide, ‘Oh, you know what? I don’t want to do this anymore; I’m

leaving.’ This is their job.

Mentors’ Perceptions of Program Model and Organizational Structure

Four themes emerged around mentors’ perceptions of the FOTC program model and the

organizational structure: organizational support; 12-year commitment to youth; community

for youth; and individualized child focus. Across all four themes, mentors described

FOTC’s organizational structure as robust, and highly invested in supporting program

youth, mentors, and mentor–mentee relationships.

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Organizational Support

Mentors perceived a high level of autonomy granted them in their work as professional

mentors: ‘‘No one really gets in your way as long as you’re doing your job.’’ Mentors

believed that this level of autonomy was a unique and largely valuable feature of FOTC.

Mentors did not, however, perceive their autonomy as a lack of support; rather, mentors

felt that FOTC placed trust in them as responsible experts, selected, trained, and supported

to do high quality work without extensive supervision. Indeed, all nine mentors also

described an organizational culture of high support. They described a high level of both

emotional and instrumental vertical support via connections with administration, as well as

horizontal support via connections with other mentors in the organization. Support was

viewed as occurring both formally, through team meetings and one-on-one check-ins with

administrative staff, and informally, through mentors and administrators offering ad hoc

resources, advice, and emotional comfort to each other.

Mentors reported that close relationships with administrative staff, high levels of sup-

port and supervision, and a culture of support among mentors were indispensable. All nine

mentors reported satisfaction with the administrative support provided, though one wished

it were more robust. Five of nine mentors specifically cited the training provided to

mentors when they began working for the organization as valuable, and six mentors spoke

specifically of the value of ongoing training opportunities.

Mentors also explained that their role fulfillment in a full-time paid capacity engendered

a sense that they were perceived by the organization as valuable. One mentor explained

how that heightened sense of the value placed on mentors by the program in turn promoted

the heightened commitment to youth:

I think the [professional] mentor feels that their work is worth more. It also helps the

mentor to be more dedicated to the children and to the job, which would then

translate into their relationship they have with their children.

The mentors interviewed also felt that as full time paid staff they were well positioned

to demand the support they needed.

The support mentors described took several forms. Several mentors cited the structured

support provided through frequent contact with other mentors and administrative person-

nel: ‘‘We meet weekly to have professional development, or just to speak about it so we

could get feedback from each other. Having professional development helps us build our

skills.’’ Several mentors also described the administrative support as crucial in combating

the challenges and emotional burden of the job.

Mentors also highlighted a high level of informal support, describing strong camara-

derie among staff and an organizational culture of sharing resources. ‘‘We’re really close-

knit as an organization. So you have that support; you have like-minded people. You have

people who are willing to help you and your child do the best every day.’’ This too, was

described as taking the form of both instrumental and emotional support. Mentors felt that

close camaraderie was fostered in large part because mentors were all around each other

for many hours per week, as well as because the children on all mentors’ caseloads faced

significant challenges:

Because of the nature of the job and the nature of the kids and the organization, I feel

like I’ve made really close connections with people I work with here. I don’t know, I

feel like maybe because we’re dealing with such hardcore heavy issues a lot, so then

when you’re going through it together it builds deeper relationships.

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Lastly, mentors emphasized that the strong culture of support within the organization

allowed for more and stronger linkages to outside resources. This was seen as an important

facet of the support provided, as all perceived the partnerships that FOTC forged with

many community organizations, agencies, and businesses that provide services beyond the

ken of FOTC as critical to their overall mission.

Twelve-Year Commitment to Youth

Chief among the features of FOTC’s structure that mentors found unique and valuable was

the organization’s 12-year commitment to each child, especially with its overlay on the

3-year commitment each mentor makes. As one mentor said,

I think that’s one of the very big things about this program, is that you are committed

for at least 3 years, and, more than that, that the young person is in the program until

they’ve successfully completed high school. I think it’s a big deal for the kids, too,

even if they do transition to another mentor. The fact that they’re in a program—you

can see pictures of yourself from when you were little to when you’re getting older.

Another mentor described the importance of conceptualizing long-term goals, which

they felt the durational focus of the program fostered:

We have a long-term look, and a lot of these other folks, like teachers and things, it’s

a one-year period of goals that they need to achieve. It has to do with the outcomes

that we want, and how we’re going to go about reaching that goal.

Community for Youth

Several mentors described the community for young people that FOTC provided beyond

their primary one-on-one mentoring relationships. Mentors connected their sense of the

extra-dyadic community for youth to the many years that youth spent within the program.

In a similar vein, seven spoke about serving as mentors to children in the program outside

their own roster. While they characterized these relationships as secondary to their rela-

tionships with their official mentees, they said they felt that they were still important adults

in the lives of other children involved with FOTC.

One mentor also described intentionally creating a community comprising the youth on

her roster: ‘‘Especially with my girls that go to the same schools, I’ve also tried to make

them a unit, so then it’s not just always support from me, it’s support from each other.’’

Individualized Child Focus

A number of mentors pointed to the organizational emphasis on attending to each mentee’s

individual needs as an important and unique organizational facet. One said, ‘‘We get to be

more child-focused. We really get to hone in on what a specific child needs, and how best

we can serve them. Whereas in other organizations there are set structures in place, you

have to follow them no matter what, even if it’s not the most beneficial thing for the child.’’

This individualized child focus was seen not only as beneficial for program youth, but for

mentors as well because of the alignment between their personal vision for best serving

children and the vision of the program.

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Discussion

We used thematic analyses of semi-structured interviews with a set of experienced, pro-

fessional mentors to examine how they conceptualized their mentoring role in light of its

fulfillment as a full-time job, as well as their experience of the organization’s support for

them and its effectiveness in steering youth toward positive outcomes. Mentors associated

the fulfillment of the mentoring role as full-time employees with role features they believed

positively impacted their ability to serve high-risk youth effectively, including profes-

sionalism and expertise; intensive week-to-week and durational time commitment; and

crossover into multiple key contexts. Clear expectations for frequency of contact and

minimal relationship duration was perceived as critical for fostering a sense of stability and

closeness within their relationships. Their involvement in multiple key contexts was seen

as important for bolstering dyadic relationships as well as for impacting proximal influ-

ential factors, which they felt was made more effective by their positioning as credible

authorities via their professional status. Mentors’ sense of themselves as competent experts

was seen as vital in navigating complicated and delicate situations effectively. They

attributed this competency in part to their previous youth work experience, as well as to

their on-the-job training as professional mentors.

Mentors’ sense of FOTC as an excellent mentoring program did not diminish their

experience of the mentor role as extremely challenging. All described frequent discour-

agement or disappointment, and all felt the workload was burdensome. As did volunteer

mentors interviewed by Spencer (2007), mentors in this study described feeling over-

whelmed by mentee needs and related boundary issues. Difficulty delineating the bounds

and contours of the role may be inherent to the pursuit of mentoring in general, a challenge

that cuts across both volunteer and professional versions of a role defined by variability and

responsiveness to individual needs. However, mentors in this study ascribed a unique

burdensomeness to the difficulties of navigating these issues in a professional context.

Though no mentors interviewed in this study echoed the frustration and low self-

efficacy espoused by mentors in Spencer’s (2007) qualitative study of failed mentoring

relationships (e.g., lack of mentee motivation, the difficulty of developing bonds with

youth, relationship-related obstacles such as disagreements or arguments; see also DuBois

and Neville 1997; Spencer 2006), these issues were not absent from the interviews. Rather,

they were seen as surmountable, temporary obstacles that mentors felt able to overcome.

As suggested by Smith (2004), and illustrated by one mentor’s complaint that people often

regard working with children as something ‘‘anyone’’ can do, perhaps these mentors with

significant youth experience under their belt already, and under the auspices of this

organization, may feel differently capable of forming bonds and motivating youngsters

successfully. The discrepancy may have as much to do with expectancies as actual skills.

Given FOTC selects children at high risk, mentors may assume that the children with

whom they work will present with profound challenges, and enter into relationships with

the understanding that developing bonds will take time. Awareness that the job will

sometimes, but not always, prove challenging and frustrating may help make travails more

tolerable.

Relatedly, many mentors expressed a notion that in spite of the significant challenges

they faced, they were well prepared for, and highly committed to, their roles. Thus, they

saw themselves as likely to remain as mentors even if adverse situations arose. A sense of

professionalism and intense commitment, as well as the provision of salary and job sta-

bility, were cited as incentivizing factors to remain in their roles. None of the mentors

interviewed in this study expressed a sense that their monetary compensation undermined

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their motivation or capacity to build strong caring relationships with their mentees. To the

contrary, they all believed their full-time professional status bolstered both. Perhaps

because they saw themselves not simply as paid but as professionals, monetary compen-

sation was not perceived to detract from their altruistic motivations, but rather enabled

them to devote themselves full-time to their altruistic pursuits and to do so as experts.

The interviewed mentors’ length of employment with FOTC and the average length of

employment across all past and current employees supports mentors’ reported perceptions

of themselves as highly committed to their roles—considerably longer than the few-month

duration of many mentors’ experiences (e.g., 19 % of mentors remained in matches for

under 6 months and another 36 % for 6–12 months in Grossman and Rhodes 2002). With

evidence linking stronger positive youth outcomes to longer lasting mentoring relation-

ships (Grossman and Rhodes 2002), identifying mechanisms by which mentors may

remain in their positions in the face of adversity marks a critical point of consideration.

Further exploration of factors impacting mentor retention across settings and program

models is still needed.

A number of mentors, however, did not characterize their commitment to the role as

permanent, just longer and more intensive than may be typical of most mentoring pro-

grams. Although all nine mentors emphasized the importance of remaining involved in the

lives of the children for several years, and all but one strongly favored the imposition of a

3-year commitment for mentors, most reported that they did not plan on remaining in their

role indefinitely. Even those with an interest in remaining in the field of youth work cited a

need for professional growth or additional financial compensation that they doubted their

program could offer due to the limited size of the organization and the limited resources

available to support professional mentoring.

Importantly, mentors’ descriptions of their durational commitment as long-term but not

permanent did not diminish their sense of the overall effectiveness of the organization.

Mentors described the 12-year commitment to all program youth, and the extended

community provided for youth by involvement with the program, as important positive

features that strengthened the program’s ability to realize positive youth outcomes. All also

said they believed that youth garnered considerable benefit from participating in the

program as a whole. Perhaps because the organization’s commitment to each child for the

duration of childhood and adolescence does not depend on whether the individual mentor

meets or exceeds the 3-year commitment, and because mentors have a sense that youth

become integrated into the larger program community, the departure of a mentor may

signal a setback, but not necessarily a breach in program-level effectiveness.

Mentors reported that their self-efficacy and perception of overall program effectiveness

were augmented by high multifaceted organizational support for mentors, a program

structure that supported youth above and beyond the one-on-one mentoring relationship,

and an organizational emphasis on an individualized child focus. They expressed similar

views to volunteer mentors interviewed in previous studies, that the agency plays a crucial

part in supporting strong relationships (Spencer 2007; Stukas and Tanti 2005). The singular

strength of FOTC revolved not only around mentors’ sense of the strong organizational

structure, but around a notion that as full-time employees they were well positioned to

demand and receive ongoing, robust organizational support.

Mentors’ description of their autonomy within the organization may be seen initially as

at odds with the stronger program effects linked to systematic monitoring of mentor–

mentee activities (DuBois et al. 2002). Systematic monitoring, however, does occur, both

through intensive regular support and via paperwork. Perhaps because mentors perceived

an alignment between their own values and the organization’s in terms of how best to

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pursue their goals, and because they perceived themselves as experienced and competent,

they felt that they were both granted autonomy and high levels of support. Also, as

illustrated in the mentor’s comment regarding the challenges of ‘‘shooting in the dark,’’

more systematic monitoring, feedback, and expectations of mentoring activities and youth

outcomes may indeed be warranted.

Mentors stressed the need for high levels of personal expertise and commitment, as well

as programmatic training and support, in light of the significant challenges faced by youth

and their families and by the significant challenges faced by mentors in serving them. This

complements Herrera et al.’s (2013) findings that mentors partnered with higher risk youth

reported a greater need for training and support. It also speaks to Nakkula and Harris’s

(2013) call for programs to assess mentors’ ‘‘risk-related relational competence.’’ Nakkula

and Harris, however, describe the need for programs to assess a global risk-related rela-

tional competence. Both our work and that of others (Grossman and Rhodes 2002; Herrera

et al. 2013) suggests that mentors’ competence in this area depends as well on the level of

risk with which their mentees present. Mentors also stressed the importance of support

because they found that working with these children took an emotional toll. Our clinical

experience suggests that when mentors are partnered with youth with a number of risks,

organizational support is important not only to ensure their competence, but also to support

them emotionally.

Implications

Mentoring experts have noted that the FOTC model is not cost-effective (Stukas et al.

2013). FOTC, of course, is not designed to be like most programs, but rather to provide

services to youth and families understood to have too many challenges and needs to be well

served by traditional mentoring models. Given the evidence that youth at particularly high

risk may be more challenging to serve effectively (Grossman and Rhodes 2002; Herrera

et al. 2013), variations on traditional mentoring models that shift and increase the intensity

of training, support, and expectations for mentors may be warranted. Our findings suggests

that mentors serving in a full-time professional capacity perceived the highly intensive

form of youth mentoring they practiced as effective for meeting the needs of youth at high

risk. Many aspects of the role could only be realized within a full-time professional

framework.

Other facets of these mentors’ experiences speak to an organizational culture of

intentionality as much as intensity. Simply employing individuals to work full-time does

not necessarily imbue them with the sense that they are professionals. These mentors felt

that FOTC treated them as professionals because they received support but also felt

respected. Mentoring programs of all types, from those using high school aged volunteers

to those using full-time paid employees, may benefit from thinking critically not only about

the tangible support that mentors receive, but the messages they receive, as well. Our work

also suggests that mentors can benefit from emotional as well as instrumental support.

Similarly, providing programming for youth to connect with each other and with other

adults necessitates some amount of resources and administrative support, but does not

demand an organization’s transformation into a mentoring program that uses full-time

professional mentors. Of course, our research does not demonstrate whether these program

features lead to stronger program effects for youth. More research is needed both on

professional mentoring models and on mentoring organizations that draw on some of these

practices in order to assess whether and how they should be adopted.

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Strengths, Limitations, and Future Directions

Though our sample of mentors was small, it contained considerable heterogeneity in terms

of mentor age, youth caseload, race/ethnicity, and prior employment and volunteer

experience. However, the findings presented are limited to a particular form of professional

youth mentoring as practiced and experienced by mentors firmly committed to their roles at

one particular agency site. Conducting interviews with former or departing mentors, as

well as mentors from other sites and other organizations that employ different types of

professional mentors or paid mentors more broadly, could offer differing perspectives on a

range of topics and expand our understanding of how serving in a paid capacity informs

mentoring. Additionally, seven out of nine mentors interviewed in this study did not have

firsthand experience of serving as mentors in a volunteer capacity. Thus, the perspectives

of this sample on the factors that differentiate serving as volunteers from serving as full-

time paid mentors may not represent the realities of volunteer mentoring experiences,

especially as volunteer mentoring experiences are likely to differ dramatically depending

on characteristics of the mentoring agency as well as the individuals filling the mentoring

role.

Conclusions

Consideration of the perspectives of the mentors interviewed in this study can deepen our

understanding of the practice of intensive mentoring as a full-time job. There may also be

implications for other types of mentoring programs. Mentors’ sense of themselves as

tenacious and patient as well as competent seemed to enable them to remain committed to

their roles and relationships through difficult situations. Salary and long-term job stability

were seen as critical for these professional mentors, but so too were their perceptions that

not only were they valued and supported, but also respected and trusted. High organiza-

tional support that aligned with mentors’ views not only of their mentees’ needs but also of

their own needs as service providers seemed to bolster their satisfaction and their com-

mitment. These professional mentors’ perspectives highlight that mentors’ experiences of

their roles are influenced by their perceptions of tangible role contours, organizational

culture, and personal factors.

Acknowledgments This research is supported in part by grants R01 HD054880 from Social and AffectiveDevelopment/Child Maltreatment and Violence, NICHD, NIH, U.S. PHS; grant # EMCF11015 from EdnaMcConnell Clark Foundation; and grant #68500 from Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Conflict of interest The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Appendix: Interview Protocol for Mentor Structured Interview

Introduction

Thank you for meeting with me today.

There are many mentoring organizations in the US, but almost all are volunteer pro-

grams where a mentor works with only one child at a time. As a mentor ‘‘Friend’’ with the

Friends of the Children (FOTC) program you are thus in a very unique position.

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In this interview, I’m going to ask you a series of questions about being a full-time,

‘‘professional’’ mentor to children. You are welcome to say as much or as little as you like

about each question. If you think of something relevant to a prior question and would like

to talk about that during a later question, you are welcome to do so.

Questions

1. Growing up, did you have a mentor?

a. Was this through a mentoring program like Big Brothers Big Sisters or was this

person a ‘‘natural’’ mentor—someone who was part of your life through your

family, school, neighborhood or some other part of your regular life?

b. How long did you have this mentor?

c. Was this mentor an important person in your life? In what ways?

2. Before you worked at FOTC, had you ever been a mentor to a child?

a. Was this through a mentoring program or were you a ‘‘natural’’ mentor?

b. If you were a ‘‘natural’’ mentor, was it a relationship formed through another job

you had working with children, or outside of work?

c. How long did you serve as a mentor?

d. Do you think you were an important person in the life of the child or children you

mentored? In what ways?

3. When and how did you first hear about the FOTC program?

a. What were your first thoughts about the program?

b. Why did you decide to become a Friend?

c. How long have you been a Friend?

d. How long do you think you’ll continue to work as a Friend?

4. How many children do you work with and for how long have you worked with each?

a. What are the challenges they face?

b. What are their strengths?

c. Are you the only mentor in the lives of the children you work with? Do you think

you are an important person in the life of the child or children you are mentoring?

In what ways?

5. Besides mentoring children through FOTC, do you mentor any other children?

a. Are you serving as a mentor through a program or are you a ‘‘natural’’ mentor?

b. How long have you served as a mentor in this way?

c. Do you think you are an important person in the life of the child or children you

are mentoring? In what ways?

6. If you mentored a child as a volunteer, what is different about mentoring as a paid

professional? What is similar?

a. What are the advantages of being a professional mentoring versus a volunteer?

What are the disadvantages?

b. Which do you prefer? Why?

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7. If you have mentored a child as a volunteer, and presumably mentored only one child

at a time, what is different about mentoring eight (or fourteen) children instead of just

one? What is similar?

a. What are the advantages of mentoring many children versus one? What are the

disadvantages?

b. Which do you prefer? Why?

*If you have not mentored a child as a volunteer, feel free to speculate.

8. Have you worked professionally with children in other contexts? If so, what is

different about working for FOTC as a professional mentor? What is similar?

a. How many children did you work with in your other job/jobs?

b. Were they of a similar demographic to the children you work with as a

professional mentor?

c. What are the advantages of working as a Friend versus working with children in

other capacities? What are the disadvantages?

d. Which do you prefer? Why?

9. A typical volunteer mentor is asked to make a 1-year commitment to mentoring, and

many other child work jobs ask for no durational commitment at all. In contrast, when

you began working as a Friend, you were asked to make a 3-year commitment. How

did that inform your thinking about the work you were about to begin?

a. How has the idea of the 3-year commitment influenced your concept of your work

since that time?

10. Do you think it is important that FOTC employs professional mentors instead of

utilizing volunteer mentors? Why or why not?

a. What difference does it make in light of the idea that FOTC serves ‘‘the most

highly at-risk children, those deemed at a young age most likely to fail or slip

through the cracks?’’

11. What are the most important qualities for a professional mentor to have?

a. What are the biggest challenges they face?

b. What opportunities do professional mentors have that volunteer mentors do not

in terms of being able to make a difference for youth?

c. What opportunities do professional mentors have that people employed in other

child work capacities do not in terms of being able to make a difference for

youth?

12. What type of education, training, support, and supervision do you think is absolutely

essential for professional mentors to serve at-risk youth effectively?

a. Do you think these differ from what volunteer mentors need?

13. What other types of organizational structure, opportunities, and services for children

and families do you think are absolutely needed as a backdrop for professional

mentors to be successful with at-risk youth?

14. What are the best things about being a professional mentor?

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