Parenting and the home environment are normally blamed for the troubles experienced by young people. To counter this oversimplification, the author details the importance of mentoring programs.

Youth mentoring can be an effective way of supporting troubled youth, helping them sustain positive mental health, cope with stress, and lead successful lives through adolescence and into adulthood. This book is a comprehensive guide to youth mentoring programmes, illustrating how, if managed well, they can increase the social support available to young people. It outlines the objectives and benefits of mentoring, how it works, and how to mentor successfully. Youth mentoring in community and school settings is covered, as well as mentoring for vulnerable youth. The book illustrates different mentoring models and provides practical strategies for assessing, setting up, and monitoring the mentoring relationship and its outcomes for the young person. The challenges and difficulties associated with mentoring programmes and strategies to overcome them are also addressed. This will be an essential guide for anyone working with young people, including youth workers, social workers, residential care staff, foster carers, community development workers, teachers and community police.

Youth mentoring programs must change in order to become truly effective. The world’s leading expert shows how. Youth mentoring is among the most popular forms of volunteering in the world. But does it work? Does mentoring actually help young people succeed? In Older and Wiser, mentoring expert Jean Rhodes draws on more than thirty years of empirical research to survey the state of the field. Her conclusion is sobering: there is little evidence that most programs—even renowned, trusted, and long-established ones—are effective. But there is also much reason for hope. Mentoring programs, Rhodes writes, do not focus on what young people need. Organizations typically prioritize building emotional bonds between mentors and mentees. But research makes clear that effective programs emphasize the development of specific social, emotional, and intellectual skills. Most mentoring programs are poorly suited to this effort because they rely overwhelmingly on volunteers, who rarely have the training necessary to teach these skills to young people. Moreover, the one-size-fits-all models of major mentoring organizations struggle to deal with the diverse backgrounds of mentees, the psychological effects of poverty on children, and increasingly hard limits to upward mobility in an unequal world. Rhodes doesn’t think we should give up on mentoring—far from it. She shows that evidence-based approaches can in fact create meaningful change in young people’s lives. She also recommends encouraging “organic” mentorship opportunities—in schools, youth sports leagues, and community organizations.

This thoroughly updated Second Edition of the Handbook of Youth Mentoring presents the only comprehensive synthesis of current theory, research, and practice in the field of youth mentoring. Editors David L. DuBois and Michael J. Karcher gather leading experts in the field to offer critical and informative analyses of the full spectrum of topics that are essential to advancing our understanding of the principles for effective mentoring of young people. This volume includes twenty new chapter topics and eighteen completely revised chapters based on the latest research on these topics. Each chapter has been reviewed by leading practitioners, making this handbook the strongest bridge between research and practice available in the field of youth mentoring.

This book introduces the concept of critical mentoring, presenting its theoretical and empirical foundations, and providing telling examples of what it looks like in practice, and what it can achieve. At this juncture when the demographics of our schools and colleges are rapidly changing, critical mentoring provides mentors with a new and essential transformational practice that challenges deficit-based notions of protégés, questions their forced adaptation to dominant ideology, counters the marginalization and minoritization of young people of color, and endows them with voice, power and choice to achieve in society while validating their culture and values.Critical mentoring places youth at the center of the process, challenging norms of adult and institutional authority and notions of saviorism to create collaborative partnerships with youth and communities that recognize there are multiple sources of expertise and knowledge. Torie Weiston-Serdan outlines the underlying foundations of critical race theory, cultural competence and intersectionality, describes how collaborative mentoring works in practice in terms of dispositions and structures, and addresses the implications of rethinking about the purposes and delivery of mentoring services, both for mentors themselves and the organizations for which they work. Each chapter ends with a set of salient questions to ask and key actions to take. These are meant to move the reader from thought to action and provide a basis for discussion.This book offers strategies that are immediately applicable and will create a process that is participatory, emancipatory and transformative.

Drawing upon work in the fields of psychology and personal relations, Rhodes outlines a model of youth mentoring, explores the potential that exists in such relationships, and also exposes the risk of unsuccessful mentoring relationships.

This guide for parents helps to answer questions that teens may have about developing a relationship with God.

Shine from Within is exactly what teenage girls are looking for to help them navigate their teens with a positive, fresh take on self image and overall wellbeing. Amanda Rootsey brings a wealth of experience from her own teenage years and from her work mentoring teenage girls. This book is fun and relatable. If you’ve been looking for an inspirational gift for your daughters, grand-daughters, nieces, or a special teen girl, Shine From Within is the perfect choice. Every teenager deserves to be validated, accepted and to have strong self-esteem to ensure they build positive, healthy relationships with their peers, family and friends. This book is packed full of practical advice. It includes: * Steps to gain more self-confidence * Fun, inspiring breakout quotes * Relatable mini-stories from real teens * Tips for job interviews * Self-care tips using eco-friendly, natural ingredients * Fashion advice for every body shape * Etiquette for different social situations Shine From Within will help any teenager to navigate through these years with confidence and joy.

Allow Them the Opportunity to Change" will empower you to work with young people in any capacity and will provide proven strategies for identifying and removing stumbling blocks that limit progress. This book will allow you to relieve the frustration you experience in attempting to reach a generation of young people whom many consider "troubled". You will learn to develop quality relationships with young people; engage young people in the kind of honest, high impact conversations that lead to lasting change; allowing you to become the primary influence in their lives. Schools, parents, children, and neighbors are all challenged to answer the bell. Sidney W. Johnson is committed to helping adults become advocates for their youth, thereby empowering youth in spite of their story to "rise above their story."