Youth
Mentoring disaffected young people: an evaluation of 'Mentoring Plus' Mentoring disaffected young people: an evaluation of 'Mentoring Plus'
This Joseph Rowntree Foundation report identifies the successful mentoring programmes in Britain that help disaffected young people to make positive changes in their lives, through education and voluntary one-to-one support. The review is the most extensive and rigorous mentoring British evaluation conducted to date. Focusing on 'Mentoring Plus' programmes, run in 10 English locations by Crime Concern, it samples a significant number of vulnerable and high risk young people's experiences.
Title: Mentoring disaffected young people: an evaluation of 'Mentoring Plus'
Author: Joseph Rowntree Foundation
Series: Findings - Ref 644
Number of pages: 4
Date published: June 2004
Mentoring Plus programmes
Mentoring Plus programmes target disaffected young people and offer one-to-one support provided by a volunteer mentor recruited from the local community. A programme of education, training and social activities is implemented. Each wave of the programme runs for 10 to 12 months, starting with a residential weekend.
Research
The research follows the progress of more than 370 young people aged 12 to 19 who were recruited to the programme. Most had experienced substantial disruption in their education and family lives, and involvement in crime and drug misuse was much higher than for the general youth population.
The research team surveyed a group of programme participants at the beginning and end of the programme and, again, 6 months later.
They also surveyed a comparison group of young people who were referred to the programme but who did not participate in it.
Many had been referred to Mentoring Plus by Youth Offending Teams, Educational Welfare Services and schools.
The research indicates:
More than half the young people recruited (57%) went on to engage with the programme on a regular basis. The programmes were especially successful at engaging young people at high risk of social exclusion, including young black African / Caribbean people.
Although the vast majority of young participants considered the programme helpful, most mentoring relationships did not progress beyond a cycle of social meetings and activities.
The proportion of participants engaged in education, training and work increased between the start and end of the mentoring programme from 49% to 63%.
Young people recruited onto the programme were at significant risk of social exclusion. Many had:
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experienced disruption in schooling and family lives
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truancy and disengagement problems
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left school without any qualifications
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high levels of, and contact with, offending, illicit drug use and the criminal justice system compared to the general youthful population.
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The Nature of Mentoring
This study found mentoring to be a delicate process based largely on 'ordinary' social interaction which often has little obvious connection with responding to challenging behaviour or causes of social exclusion. Typically it is cyclical and reactive. The research identified 3 potential cycles:
The basic cycle
contact-meeting-doingThe problem-solving cycle
contact-meeting-doing-fire-fighting;The action-oriented cycle
contact-meeting-doing-fire-fighting-action.
Young people's assessments
The vast majority of young people recruited on to the programme considered the core elements to have been helpful:
Mentor element
37% felt they had been very helpful
33% felt they had been fairly helpful
Mentoring Plus programme element
45% felt it had been very helpful
33% felt it had been fairly helpful.
More of the young people felt that the programme had helped them in relation to education and work, than in relation to tackling offending.
Conclusion
The achievements of Mentoring Plus are particularly impressive, as interventions with disaffected young people are inherently difficult to implement. While many of the Mentoring Plus projects ran into operational difficulties, those that were well implemented had the greatest impact in terms of encouraging young people into education and work.
The research recommends that policy-makers and funders think carefully about how they support such programmes in the future. There is also a need to think through the process more fully, by concentrating on reducing offending. This was a general aim of the programme, yet it was not a specific goal in any of its structured elements.
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Mentoring disaffected young people: an evaluation of 'Mentoring Plus'
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How to get further information
The full report, Mentoring disaffected young people: An evaluation of Mentoring Plus by Michael Shiner, Tara Young, Tim Newburn and Sylvie Groben, is published by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (ISBN 1 85935 163 8, price £15.95)
Last update: 16 July 2004