School-Based Mentoring for Middle & High School Students

“We observe that only close relationships have impacts and that match length does not matter much. In other words, if a match is long but not good, it is not productive; if it is short but good, it is productive” (Bayer 2013, “School-Based Mentoring Programs: Using Volunteers to Improve the Academic Outcomes of Underserved Students"

Having a close relationship with a nonparental adult has a positive and statistically significant effect on academic outcomes. (Bayer 2013, “School-Based Mentoring Programs: Using Volunteers to Improve the Academic Outcomes of Underserved Students”)

Students who meet regularly with their mentors are 52% less likely than their peers to skip a day of school and 37% less likely to skip a class. (Public/Private Ventures Study of Big Brothers Big Sisters)

“The single most common finding is that children who end up doing well have had at least one stable and committed relationship with a supportive parent, caregiver, or other adult. These relationships provide the personalized responsiveness, scaffolding, and protection that buffer children from developmental disruption. They also build key capacities—such as the ability to plan, monitor and regulate behavior, and adapt to changing circumstances— that enable children to respond to adversity and to thrive. This combination of supportive relationships, adaptive skill-building, and positive experiences constitutes the foundations of what is commonly called resilience” (Shonkoff 2015; Harvard University Center on the Developing Child).

“The 2006 National Promises Study reveals a number of troubling gaps in the distribution of this cornerstone Promise: One-third of teens and 20 percent of younger children do not have quality relationships with their parents.  More than 55 percent of adolescents and 40 percent of younger children do not have caring adults in their homes, schools and communities.” (America’s Promise Alliance)

“A 2014 report by MENTOR entitled The Mentoring Effect also showed that 13.5 million young Americans are without formal or even informal mentors in their lives, leaving them short of caring adults in their lives who have the ability to help them through critical moments when they most need guidance and support.” (America’s Promise Alliance) 

“Governments, businesses, nonprofits, and young people endorse and value mentoring as an important asset in a young person’s life. Yet in America today, too many young people — including nearly nine million at-risk youth — do not have access to a mentoring relationship.” (The National Mentoring Partnership, “The Mentoring Effect”, 2014).

“The Study of Mentoring in the Learning Environment (SMILE) examined participants in a multicomponent program, Communities in School–San Antonio (CIS-SA), who received a number of support services (Karcher, 2008). The study compared those students who received just the standard services with those who received the standard services plus mentoring. Students who received mentoring reported increases in self-esteem, connectedness to peers, and social support from friends, despite the relatively short duration of the matches. This finding suggests that there is an “additive” effect when mentoring is combined with other interventions” (Karcher, et al. “Mentoring Programs: A Framework to Inform Program Development, Research, and Evaluation”, 2008).

“As shown in Table II, YouthFriends students (M = 11.63, SD = 3.84) scored significantly higher than controls (M = 10.36, SD = 2.89) on sense of school membership at posttest (t(141) = -2.26, p = .03), indicating that those students participating in YouthFriends developed a higher sense of belonging to the school community than did their matched controls.” (Portwood, et al. YouthFriends: Outcomes from a School Based-Mentoring Program 2005).

A meta-analysis of targeted truancy and dropout programs indicated that students at high risk of dropping out are 20 percent less likely to drop out if they receive school-based mentoring. (Washington State Institute for Public Policy, 2009)

“A 2013 analysis of “Success Mentors” that worked with chronically absent students in New York City found that each participant gained about nine days of school per year, and that high school participants were 52 percent more likely to remain in school the following academic year compared to their peers who did not receive mentoring support.” (Hanover Research, “Best Practices for Improving Attendance in Secondary Schools”, 2016)