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Social capital plays a key role in college students' academic and career success. Using a random assignment design, the current study evaluated the impacts of a one-credit college course designed to increase student help-seeking and social capital within a racially diverse sample of college students. Compared to the control group, students in the treatment group reported improved attitudes towards help-seeking, increased help-seeking behavior, and higher levels of social capital and mentoring support. Academic benefits were mixed, however, with an increase in academic self-efficacy, no impact on college GPA, and a decrease in academic cognitive engagement. Additionally, differential impacts based on year in college, race, and first-generation college student status were observed. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

OBJECTIVE: Posttraumatic growth (PTG) has been documented in the aftermath of a range of traumatic events, including bereavement, physical assault, and rape. However, only a handful of studies have examined whether levels of total PTG, as well as the 5 domains of PTG (Appreciation of Life, New Possibilities, Relating to Others, Personal Strength, and Spiritual Change), vary by the type of potentially traumatic event. The current study examined variation in total PTG and PTG domains, as well as posttraumatic stress (PTS), by event type using data from a large epidemiological study. METHOD: Participants were from a substudy of the Nurses Health Study 2, an epidemiologic study of female nurses in the United States (N = 1,574). RESULTS: Controlling for demographic covariates, we found that rape was consistently associated with lower PTG, both total PTG and all five PTG domains, relative to other event types. Other findings were limited to specific PTG domains; for example, intimate partner violence (IPV) was associated with higher Personal Strength and New Possibilities. In contrast, rape and IPV were associated with higher PTS, and the serious illness or injury of someone close with lower PTS, relative to other event types. CONCLUSION: These results add to the growing literature exploring variation in PTG by event type and suggest that different events could yield markedly different patterns of PTG domains and PTS. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Youth referred to mentoring programs vary considerably in the range and severity of difficulties (i.e., behavioral, internalizing, social and academic) and environmental challenges they face. However, their patterns of risk and corresponding consequences for mentoring have rarely been investigated. This study draws on data for youth participants in 30 mentoring programs (n = 2,165, 55.1% females) to examine patterns of presenting challenges. Four profiles emerged using three-step latent profile analyses. Profiles with more intensive symptoms were associated with more environmental stressors. Moreover, there were significant differences between profiles in youth-perceived relationship attributes, including closeness, youth-centeredness, growth focus and mentor-mentee relational health. The profile with the highest externalizing and social challenge indicators scored the lowest across these four relational indices. The results highlight variability of youth risk at baseline, and its differential impact on mentoring relationship outcomes. Implications for mentoring programs are discussed.

A survey of 1,860 15-year-olds from across the United States found that mentees' perceived positive regard from caring adults was associated with a range of personal, school, and civic outcomes. A structural equation modeling analysis found that for youth who have a mentor or other caring adults that they feel "gets them," this perceived positive regard was positively related to youth's sense of purpose and effort in school, which are related to higher grades and civic engagement. A person-centered approach found associations between feeling 'gotten' by a caring adult and higher academic and civic engagement. Results also demonstrate potential negative effects for youth who perceived low positive regard from an adult. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Organized sports are among the most common youth activities in the United States, and athletic coaches can often become important mentors to their players. Nonetheless, few studies have examined the characteristics of youth who form mentoring relationships with coaches and whether such relationships are associated with later academic outcomes. This study utilized data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health to address these gaps in the literature. Gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and parent marital status were associated with coach mentorship. Coach mentorship was associated with high school and college completion, even after controlling for sports participation and academic grades. Findings highlight the formative role that coach mentors can play in adolescents' academic success and suggest that differential access to this resource may have long-term consequences for youth.

Most of the existing body of research on formal youth mentoring has focused on programs in the United States, with few inquiries into how mentoring programs have taken shape in other contexts. In this article, we compare and contrast programs in the United States and continental Europe to investigate how context shapes the ways in which programs are conceived and implemented. Concerns about inequality and delinquency have been major drivers of program expansion in the United States, while concerns about the influx of migrants into linguistically and culturally homogeneous communities have fostered the expansion of programs in continental Europe. Through a series of program comparisons, we explored differences in volunteer characteristics, target populations, and how programs and benefits are construed. Implications for implementation and future research across both contexts are discussed.

Youth-initiated mentoring (YIM), in which youth select adults from within their communities to serve as mentors in relationships that are formalized through mentoring programs, has the potential to redress problems faced by many mentoring programs that could adversely affect system-involved youth, such as volunteer attrition and premature match closures. However, only a few programs have implemented YIM, and there is little research on this approach. This qualitative interview study examines the formation of YIM relationships and how they are experienced by mentors (n = 14), youth (n = 17), and the youths' parent/guardian (n = 6). Youth tended to select adults whom they had encountered through school or social services. Findings indicate that the YIM selection process contributed to mentor, youth, and parent/guardian investment in the mentoring relationship and to the youth's rapid development of feelings of closeness and trust in the mentor. Knowing that mentors would be nonjudgmental, trustworthy, and dedicated appeared to facilitate positive relationship development, which is important given the difficulty of engaging and serving system-involved youth in mentoring programs.

Youth who form bonds with supportive, nonparent adults within their existing social networks (i.e., natural mentors) experience a range of positive outcomes, but a relatively minimal amount is known regarding the psychosocial factors that prospectively predict the formation of natural mentoring relationships. Analyzing longitudinal youth data from the waitlist control group of a formal mentoring intervention, the current study investigates the psychosocial factors that predict the acquisition of natural mentoring relationships. Of youth who reported not having a natural mentor at baseline (n = 193), ages 9 to 16 (M = 11.20, SD = 1.61), 46.1% acquired a natural mentor over a school year. A significant interaction between stress (i.e., the number of recent stressful life events) and prosocial peer engagement predicted the acquisition of a natural mentor. At low levels of stress, prosocial peer engagement significantly predicted a lower likelihood of acquiring a natural mentor. This negative association became less strong with increasing stress levels. These findings highlight the importance of addressing interactions among personal and contextual factors when examining natural mentorship. The current and future investigations of naturally occurring mentoring relationships can inform the development of community-based and contextually relevant mentoring interventions.

In this study, we examined associations between mentoring relationship quality, rejection sensitivity, and youth outcomes. Participants (N = 446) were part of a national, random assignment evaluation of Big Brothers Big Sisters of America school-based mentoring programs. Youth in more trusting mentoring relationships demonstrated reductions in teacher-reported behavioral evidence of rejection sensitivity. These reductions, in turn, were positively associated with youth's assertiveness with peers and prosocial behavior. Percentile bootstrap confidence intervals testing indirect effects demonstrated that rejection sensitivity mediated the association between mentoring relationship trust and teacher-reported assertiveness and prosocial behavior. Implications of the findings for theory and practice are discussed.

The current study investigated how ethnicity and gender affect changes in the self-esteem of early adolescents during the middle school years. Self-report data were collected from more than 4,000 early adolescents from three ethnic groups: European American, African American, and Hispanic and analyzed using a consecutive three-year cross-sectional design to investigate group trajectories. Distinct group trajectories of self-esteem from sixth to eighth grade were found for each ethnic group. African American adolescents had high and stable self-esteem across these years while Hispanic adolescents had low and stable self-esteem. In contrast, self-esteem among European Americans began moderately high in sixth grade but dropped precipitously by eighth grade. Girls had lower self-esteem than boys in the Hispanic and European American groups, but not in the African American group. We conclude that past studies that found a sharp decline in self-esteem during the middle school years may have been conducted in a largely white sample and thus obscure important individual ethnic factors. (Contains 1 table and 1 figure.)

Non-parent mentoring relationships are important protective factors for first-generation college students. Previous research has focused on singular mentoring relationships measured at one time point, failing to capture the breadth and dynamic nature of social networks. The current study is a longitudinal investigation of first-generation students' mentoring networks during their transition to college at a four-year, predominantly minority-serving commuter university. At the beginning and end of their first year, students (N = 176) responded to online surveys on their mentoring relationship(s), attitudes toward help-seeking, and college experiences. Cumulative support from pre-college mentoring relationships retained across the first year was positively associated with self-efficacy. Support from newly acquired mentoring relationships was positively associated with psychological sense of school membership. Network orientation was positively associated with self-efficacy and sense of school membership. These findings highlight the importance of diverse mentoring networks and demonstrate the utility of collecting longitudinal data on multiple mentoring relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Youth mentoring relationships have significant potential for promoting positive youth development. Nonetheless, the benefits derived from such relationships depend considerably on the length and quality of the bonds that are created between mentors and youth. Although some attention has been paid to youth's experience of relationship quality, few studies have focused on mentors' experience of relationship quality. In the context of a national sample of mentor and youth dyads in Big Brothers Big Sisters community-based mentoring programs (N = 5,222), the current study validated a new mentor-reported measure of relationship quality, explored associations between mentor and youth assessments of relationship quality, and investigated the capacity of early assessments of relationship quality to predict mentoring relationship duration. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Parental incarceration is an adverse childhood experience that is associated with heightened risk for negative outcomes in youth. Mentoring programs seek to mitigate this risk by providing children of incarcerated parents (COIP) with a supportive relationship that fosters positive outcomes. The current study presents findings from a longitudinal evaluation of enhanced mentoring program practices designed for supporting COIP. One thousand three hundred and thirty‐four COIP mentees, their parents or guardians, and their mentors were randomly assigned to receive either enhanced or business as usual (BAU) mentoring. Mentees who received enhanced mentoring demonstrated improved positive self‐cognitions, and reduced internalizing behavior problems, intentions to use substances, and substance use, compared with youth who received BAU mentoring. The enhancements had no impact on the quality of mentoring relationships and the enhanced matches had shorter mentoring relationships compared with BAU matches. This evaluation demonstrates that the enhanced mentoring program practices for COIP had significant, positive impacts on outcomes for this special population of youth and suggests that enhanced practices tailored to COIP should be implemented throughout the duration of the mentoring relationship to be most effective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Youth initiated mentoring (YIM) is an innovative approach to mentoring being implemented by the National Guard Youth ChalleNGe Program in which youth identify and select their mentors. There is great interest in this approach; however, there has been little study of YIM or its implementation in ChalleNGe. Retrospective in-depth qualitative interviews with former ChalleNGe participants (n = 30) were conducted to gain a descriptive understanding of the mentor selection process, the role these relationships played in participants' experiences of the ChalleNGe program and in their lives more generally, and the nature and strength of these connections. Findings indicate that youth were able to successfully enlist the participation of mentors and YIM yielded enduring and emotionally supportive relationships. That the adults came from within their communities was viewed by these participants as having expedited the development of feelings of trust and contributed to the relevancy and meaningfulness of the guidance and advice offered.

In this study, we examined the characteristics of adolescents' deep interests or "sparks," the role of relationships in supporting the development of sparks, and whether having a spark was associated with positive developmental outcomes. Participants included 1,860 15 years olds from across the United States who participated in the national Teen Voice survey (56% European American, N = 1,860). Profile-centered analyses suggested that sparks are characterized by the intensity of positive feelings, immersion, and utility. The strongest sparks were associated with pursuits requiring more interpersonal engagement, such as sports, drama and dance, participating in politics, and serving others. Spark intensity was related to better social, academic, and affective outcomes. Additionally, youth with stronger sparks reported more encouragement, financial support, and transportation to spark activities from parents, mentors, extended-family, neighbors, school-based adults, and peers. Benefits of adolescents' engagement in interest-driven activities and the role of caring relationships in supporting such interests are highlighted.

Although assigned mentoring relationships have typically involved same-gender matches, a growing number of programs, particularly those in schools, have begun pairing female mentors with male mentees. This practice stems, in large part, from the relative dearth of male mentors and programs' efforts to increase the availability of youth mentoring to young males on waiting lists. We drew on secondary data from the two largest random assignment evaluations of school-based mentoring programs, the Department of Education's Student Mentoring Program and Big Brothers Big Sisters of America's School-based Mentoring, to explore the characteristics and effects of same- versus cross-gender mentoring relationships for male mentees. Our sample included 1,513 male youth from the respective programs. With only a few exceptions, male youth in same- versus cross-gender mentoring relationships experienced similar relationship processes and outcomes. Implications for research and practice are discussed along with limitations including the nonexperimental design of the study and unmeasured effects of selection bias.

At the heart of afterschool programs are the relationships that form between the children and youth who participate in these programs and the adults who lead them. To be effective, adults working in afterschool settings must be able to engage youth in growth-promoting relationships. This article identifies and describes four foundational ways of interacting with youth that foster the development of such relationships--engaging in warm and emotionally supportive connections, providing developmentally appropriate structure and support, cultivating and responding to youth initiative, and scaffolding and propelling youth learning and skill development.