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State Study Boosts Mentoring Programs
Both businesses and young people benefit, survey reports
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Business New Haven
10/27/2003
By: BNH
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HARTFORD - Mentoring works. Well-structured mentoring programs benefit mentored youth and their mentors in numerous ways.
Those are some of the conclusions released in a first-of-its-kind evaluation of Connecticut youth and adults participating in selected mentoring programs across the state, many sponsored by businesses.
The Governor's Prevention Partnership, through its Connecticut Mentoring Partnership program, has compiled nearly 1,000 surveys conducted separately with mentors and their mentees indicating that young people who participate in such programs say they have improved attitudes towards school, get better grades, come to school better-prepared and behave better in class.
Mentors, many of whom participate in business-sponsored programs, say they are highly satisfied with the experience and have positive views of their company's involvement in mentoring programs. They also report having a better understanding of diversity issues as a result.
The findings also show that programs that meet "basic quality standards" of mentor screening, training and support are more likely to show positive results than those that don't.
According to the evaluation report, "Overall, the mentoring programs are well-run and provide adequate training and support to mentors, who in turn are developing strong, caring relationships with young people."
Said Susan K. Patrick, president of the Governor's Prevention Partnership: "From these first findings we believe that well-structured mentoring programs play an important role in preparing youth to become productive members of society. It's significant, also, to find that mentoring brings workplace benefits to companies that provide release time for their employees to mentor."
Three different nationally developed surveys were used in the project. The first survey was given to mentees, another to mentors who work for companies that partner with a mentoring program, and the third to all other mentors.
Begun in April, the project analyzed 923 surveys from 19 participating programs.
More than half of responding youth mentees thought they were better leaders than before, and nearly 70 percent reported having higher expectations of themselves. More than half of the mentees felt that their relationships with their mentors had a positive effect on their commitment to learning.
Also, 47 percent of the mentees felt better able to resist drugs and alcohol while another 47 percent already felt able to do so.
The full report is available on the Governor's Prevention Partnership Web site, www.preventionworksct.org, or by calling 800-422-5422.
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