An Enhanced Mentoring Model’s Impact on Youth in Boys and Girls Clubs

Authors

  • Lisa McGarrie Georgia State University, Georgia Health Policy Center
  • Eric Napierala Georgia State University, Georgia Health Policy Center
  • Carrie Oliver Georgia State University, Georgia Health Policy Center
  • Emily Heberlein Georgia State University, Georgia Health Policy Center
  • Brittany Jean Taylor Georgia State University, Georgia Health Policy Center
  • Angela Snyder Georgia State University, Georgia Health Policy Center

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5195/jyd.2022.1220

Keywords:

youth mentoring, youth development, delinquency, youth program development

Abstract

Although federal funding has been provided to add mentoring to youth development programs for decades, we still lack knowledge about the impacts of mentoring on youth outcomes. This research seeks to fill a gap by documenting youth outcomes from an enhanced mentoring approach for urban Boys and Girls Clubs (BGC) in the Southeastern United States delivered by paid staff who serve as mentors through group activities and 1:1 interactions with youth. We perform logistic regressions of secondary data from a cohort of BGCs to understand the relationships between enhanced mentoring and youth outcomes related to program retention, behaviors, and academics. We find the presented approach has a significant relationship with retention with those mentored being 1.92 times more likely to return the following program year. Mentored youth also experienced higher expectations from staff and were less likely to be involved in a physical fight with peers.

Author Biographies

Lisa McGarrie, Georgia State University, Georgia Health Policy Center

MSW

Eric Napierala, Georgia State University, Georgia Health Policy Center

MA

Carrie Oliver, Georgia State University, Georgia Health Policy Center

MPH

Emily Heberlein, Georgia State University, Georgia Health Policy Center

PhD

Brittany Jean Taylor, Georgia State University, Georgia Health Policy Center

PhD

Angela Snyder, Georgia State University, Georgia Health Policy Center

PhD

References

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Published

2022-09-27

Issue

Vol. 17 No. 3 (2022)

Section

Research & Evaluation Studies

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