In this article, researchers explored the idea of mentoring programs helping maltreated children in the foster care system. The idea is that by having a good mentor, the child will learn better-coping skills. Many maltreated children have shown a form of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. These children may not have the best ways to cope with stress. By learning how to handle stress in a healthier way, negative effects and psychosocial issues are reduced. (Chesmore et.al. 2017) Children will be influenced on how to deal with stress by watching their parents.
Good quality relationships between children and adults have shown less emotional disruptions that lead to negative thoughts. However, because abused kids have a strained relationship with their parents it can be hard to connect with their new caregivers. (Chesmore, et al., 2017) It is thought an abused child will be attached to caregivers or other non-parental adults who they see as mentors. In this randomized controlled trial, children aged 9-11 along with the adults were enrolled in a 9- month intervention program.
This included kids that were in the foster care system from the years of 2007-2011. To be eligible the child must have been placed in foster care by the court within the year before, were living with the foster family at the time of the interview and were able to understand the interview questions. In total 154 kids were evaluated for this study. (Chesmore, et al., 2017) The majority of these children had experienced supervisory neglect, emotional maltreatment, physical neglect, physical abuse and multiple types of maltreatment.
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The mentors in this program were social work or psychology graduate students with the university. Participants were interviewed at their home or a community location by a trained grad student. Custodians and kids were interviewed separately. (Chesmore, et al.,2017) During the intervention programs included; a skill group which met for an hour and a half every week for 30 weeks during the school year and consisted of 8-10 kids. (Chesmore et al., 2017) Within the skills group, kids worked on problem-solving, recognizing emotions, healthy relationships, and abuse prevention. And one on one mentoring in which children spent 2-4 hours every week with the mentors for the 30 weeks.
This helped the children with more positive attitudes about their placement, along with educational and social skills. (Chesmore, et al., 2017) In the end, researchers found that a quality mentoring relationship is positively linked to distraction coping. Distraction coping is a less destructive form of disengagement. Kids were found to ‘read a book’ or ‘listen to music’ (Chesmore, et al. p. 237, 2017) This temporarily relieves stress and tends to be situational. Mentors encouraged kids to distract themselves when it comes to stressors they can not control.
During the intervention process, mentors would model how to cope. The kids learned the skills to be more confident to take actions on solving problems. (Chesmore et al., 2017) Researchers found that coping skills can be changed through indirect ways. (Chesmore et al., 2017) More research needs to be done focusing on what the mentors say to the kids. Long-term studies need to be done on the effects mentoring programs have on abused children. Along with exactly what the benefits of a good relationship with a mentor are. This study found that even after the intervention ended, the mentees were shown to continue adaptive skills for dealing with stress. (Chesmore et al., 2017)
References
- Chesmore, A.A, Weiler, L.M., & Taussig, H. N. (2017). Mentoring relationship quality and maltreated children’s coping. American Journal of Community Psychology, 60(1/2), 229-241. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajcp.12151
