Table of Contents
Program Description
Fostering Healthy Futures for Teens (FHF-T) is a short-term mentorship program for boys and girls entering eighth and ninth grade with a history of child maltreatment and a current or previous open child welfare case. FHF-T is thirty weeks long, and each mentor is a graduate student at the University of Denver graduate school of social work. The teens and their families are first visited by the supervisors Orah Fireman and Robyn Wertheimer- Hodas and asked various questions about themselves and expectations for the program.
From that, they are selected and assigned to mentors according to preference, gender, and interests. The mentors have a two-day training before finding out their mentee. Once they are briefed on their mentee the mentor schedules the first home visit. Mentors utilize self-assessments, visioning and goal-setting exercises, individualized skills training and workshops when working with the youth involved in the program. Each mentor has three mentees that they work with throughout the year.
The program is based on a positive youth development framework. The goal of FHF-T is to build competencies and prevent and reduce adverse outcomes. Due to it being a research project, teens get paid to complete interviews and are then randomly chosen to get involved in the program. The program is entirely voluntary and is no cost to the families or caregivers.
127 our experts are availableright now
The program runs on an IREACH domain standing for identity, relationships with adults and peers, education, activity involvement, career development, and physical and mental health. Mentors meet with their teens weekly and plan activities that the teen and mentor can engage in. Each activity has to do with an assessment technique, skill building, goal setting and much more. The mentor is there to support not only the child but also the family.
The mentees attend a monthly workshop where they get to meet other teens in the program and interact while practicing various skills such as problem solving and communication. Not only do mentors practice multiple skills with the teens they also engage in things such as goal setting, future visioning, and career development. The teens have something called a career shadow where the mentors find professionals in the area to connect with the teens to educate them on their journey to that profession.
The program is monitored by weekly reports completed by the mentor on Redcap, case conferences, weekly supervision, and group supervision. Mentors meet weekly for admin meetings to keep up to date with different things happening in the community and just administrative things. Then they engage in a weekly seminar which is where the supervisors or an outside speaker come in and teach the mentors about the integration of various skills with their teens, the ins and outs of child welfare, the laws regarding foster children, school requirements and much more. The mentors also engage in weekly group and individual supervision to seek help and guidance from supervisors and fellow peers.
Literature Review
Mentorship programs have been utilized for a long time now and continue to be proven effective over time. The underlying problem at hand is the history of child maltreatment and child welfare involvement. Each of the teens in the Fostering Healthy Futures for Teens program has been involved due to a history of child maltreatment. The mentorship program is utilized as an intervention aspect for these at-risk children; therefore, it is essential to evaluate the effectiveness of the mentorship program. The research question that will be examined will be: Does FHF-T, a short-term mentorship program, elicits hopeful feelings towards the future, effectiveness and overall participant satisfaction?
Underlying Problem
Child abuse and neglect have been around for centuries, but it was not until 1974 when the U.S. finally defined the phrase “child maltreatment.” The U.S. passed the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act defining maltreatment as:
The physical and mental injury, sexual abuse, neglected treatment or maltreatment of a child under age 18 by a person who is responsible for the child’s welfare under circumstances that indicate the child’s health and wellbeing is harmed and threatened thereby (English, 1998 p. 40).
But why do parents abuse or neglect their children? There are many factors associated with abuse and neglect, some being social and economic status, caregiver’s characteristics such as mental health difficulties, previous trauma experience, and substance use. In 1994, 2.9 million children were reported for experiencing abuse and neglect in the United States (English, 1998).
In 2017 Heather Taussig and Lindsey Weiler estimate that there were around 400,000 youth in foster care on any given day in the past five years. Thirty percent live in kinship care, which is with relatives, and nearly half of the youth live in nonrelative foster placements. These youth experience various placement changes throughout their lives and about ten percent age out of the foster care system (Taussig & Weiler 2017) From 1994 to 2017 there is still a high prevalence of children suffering from maltreatment and child welfare involvement.
The involvement of child welfare due to child maltreatment is a genuine problem occurring all across the United States. Youth involved in the child welfare system can have adverse effects; they usually fall into one of two categories as adults- in jail or living on the streets (Rhodes, 1994). Youth usually suffer from developmental delays, lack of social skills and disruptive attachment due to prior maltreatment. These could cause difficulties in adulthood (English, 1998). There are many interventions in place for the prevention and reduction of child maltreatment, one including a mentorship program for at-risk youth.
Types of Mentorships
The term “Mentoring” is defined as the relationship between an older more experienced mentor and an unrelated younger mentee (Rhodes, 1994). There are various types of mentors that youth can have during their lifetime. There are natural mentors, formal mentors, voluntary mentors, and kinship mentors. A natural mentor is someone that is a non-parental adult from the child’s social network (Rhodes, 1994).
A formal mentor is someone that is assigned to a child; they are usually working with a mentoring agency or involved in higher education. Voluntary mentors are mentors that volunteer to work with the at-risk youth and kinship mentors are mentors that are relatives of the child (Southwick, Morgan, Vythilingam & Charney, 2007).
Each type of mentorship comes with positives and negatives. A voluntary mentor is associated with the most negative results. Voluntary mentorships have various but usually adverse effects for the youth involved. The reason for this is because of the short time period, lack of consistency and training (Southwick, Morgan, Vythilingam & Charney, 2007). Among the voluntary mentorships, the most effective program is Big Brother Big Sister.
In a study of 929 youth enrolled in Big Brother Big Sister, the children with a mentor was less likely to engage in drinking, illegal drugs and less likely to skip school (Southwick, Morgan, Vythilingam & Charney, 2007). Youth with a kinship mentor’s are more likely to have better school grades, attendance, and better mental health. Due to the kinship mentor being in the same social network as the youth they have a better understanding of their personal, family and cultural difficulties and history (Southwick, Morgan, Vythilingam & Charney, 2007).
Formal mentors are usually paid mentors, graduate or college students. These programs tend to focus on developing social skills, self-confidence and life skills. Formal mentorships tend to have positive outcomes due to the education level and training that these mentors receive (Southwick, Morgan, Vythilingam & Charney, 2007). These programs are usually cost-effective and culturally sensitive (Rhodes, 1994).
Out of all the different types of mentorships the most effective and widely researched was natural mentors. Youth use the phrases “like a parent or “trusted advisor” to describe their natural mentor. Natural mentors could consist of caseworkers, teachers, friends or coaches. This is someone in the youth’s social network (Taussig &Weiler, 2017).
Rhodes found that twenty-six percent of adolescent males and twenty-seven percent of adolescent females report having positive relationships with non-parental adults. They report getting tangible and emotional support from these natural mentors (1994). There was another study proving that the presence of a natural mentor in preadolescence was proven to have a better attachment with friends, better social skills and more future opportunities (Taussig &Weiler, 2017). Thus explaining why adolescents with natural mentors have the most positive effects and the higher quality of life.
The Effectiveness of Mentorship Programs
According to a study that observed the success of youth, reported that one key difference between successful and unsuccessful youth is that the successful ones had at least one mentor. They stated that the mentor helped to compensate for the absence of two healthy parents (Rhodes, 1994). Mentorships for youth with a history of child maltreatment have many positive outcomes and effects. Having a mentor can help with various things such as educational outcomes, mental health difficulties, support, resiliency, self-advocacy and improved social skills (Taussig & Weiler, 2017).
Mentorships are associated with helping to promote resiliency. Southwick, Morgan, Vythilingam, and Charney (2007) give an example of a 25-year-old male named Pete. Pete has a history of violent behavior resulting in expulsion from twelve different schools, arrests and jail time. The mentors in his life promoted Pete’s resilience. Pete was able to create supportive relationships with nonparent adults in his life, which ultimately helped him to become resilient and exhibit less violent behaviors. He reported having grown emotionally from his mentor (Southwick, Morgan, Vythilingam & Charney, 2007).
Though it seems like mentorship’s help with the promotion of resiliency it is unknown if mentors are actually helping in the promotion or if it’s a third party factor that has not been researched (Rhodes, 1994). There was a study of adolescents from the Midwest, fifty-two percent that had a mentor reported less marijuana use, less violent behavior, and promoted positive attitudes towards school and motivation to do well in school (Southwick, Morgan, Vythilingam & Charney, 2007).
Mentorships have very positive effects on improved mental health and behavioral outcomes. Fostering Healthy Futures, a research study, reviewed one hundred and fifty-six nine-to-eleven-year-olds recently placed in foster care. They attended thirty weeks of social skills groups and weekly individualized mentoring. Their mentors were graduate students. This study resulted in improvements in mental health difficulties and quality of life (Taussig & Weiler, 2017). Mentors can help as serving as a buffer for anxiety and depression. African Americans and Latino/a’s with mentors show lower levels of depression (Southwick, Morgan, Vythilingam & Charney, 2007).
Overall those youth who were considered successful and who thrived had at least one person they identified as a mentor that gave them immense support. Youth with a mentor have better outcomes than those without a mentor. But there are limitations such as a lack of training, bad planning, communication or a lack of consistency and duration of time. The shorter the program is, the less likely for it to be as effective (Rhodes, 1994). There are also some gaps in information. They have little information about the effects on different races and ethnicities and genders and if there are any differences. They also do not discuss the hopefulness for the future that the child could experience in a mentorship program.
Conclusion
Overall mentorships are proven effective when working with adolescents involved in the child welfare system due to a history of child maltreatment. Though the different types of mentors can vary, they are proven to be more useful to have than not to have. Mentorship is a helpful intervention for the reduction of child maltreatment by utilizing and educating youth on basic life skills and improvement of mental health difficulties.
There is plenty of information about the effectiveness of mentorships, but there is a gap of information about the youth’s hopefulness for the future and participant satisfaction, which will need to be researched. There is also a gap of information about the overall satisfaction of the participants in the mentorship programs. This information is useful for my research question because it shows how effective mentorship programs are. It was also interesting learning about how mentors can come in many different forms.
Many of the studies featured are dated ten years old or older. It was difficult to find current information that was accessible for the effectiveness of mentorships. Though the reviews are dated much of the information is useful for the research on the efficacy of a short-term mentorship program and hopefulness for the future. The plan for future research would be to examine the effectiveness, overall satisfaction and hopefulness for the future for a short-term formal mentorship program.
