"Those Bridges That Help You Get There": How Natural Mentors Improve Social Support and Social Capital of Unaccompanied Immigrant Youths Leaving Residential Care.

The increasing arrival of unaccompanied immigrant youth to Europe has been challenging for established political and social interventions. A range of social and educational services have been developed to help young immigrants in their transition to adulthood and these programmes are often spaces where they can meet supportive adults. Twenty semi-structured interviews with unaccompanied immigrant youth residing in the Barcelona Metropolitan Area were carried out. This qualitative study explores the prevalence and role of natural mentors in their lives. Furthermore, we go deeper into the functions and dynamics developed through two relationships where young people shared in-depth explanations of their meaning for their lives. Our findings suggest that natural mentors provide various types of social support and social capital, which fulfil the emotional or educational needs of young people. Facilities and obstacles for building natural mentoring relationships are presented in order to provide social and political implications. We conclude that there is a need for providing services to reinforce or promote natural mentoring relationships for unaccompanied immigrant youth leaving residential care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]