Peer Mentoring

Why Is Mentoring Important?

Mentoring has experienced a surge in popularity during the past decade as a way for youth to build their personal assets, particularly those who are facing personal difficulties due to major learning, social, economic, cultural, and family/household obstacles. The National Dropout Prevention Center/Network has endorsed mentoring as one of the 15 most effective strategies for addressing the dropout rate,  This is due in large part to the multitude of research-based findings are emerging that prove the effectiveness of mentoring.
An independent study of a national mentoring program resulted in impressive findings for children linked with individual mentors versus those on the organization’s waiting list, which served as the control group. The children linked with mentors were:
•    46 percent less likely to begin using illegal drugs
•    27 percent less likely to begin using alcohol
•    53 percent less likely to skip school
•    37 percent less likely to skip a class

Peer Mentoring

Peer and cross-age mentoring has been specifically identified as a useful technique for building assets in youth, both the youth providing the mentoring and those being mentored. There are many ways that peer helping and mentoring builds skills that young people can use to contribute to one another and their communities: focusing on relationships and providing basic skills to offer caring, support and guidance; moving away from a professionals-only approach to meeting young people’s needs and concerns; and, building bridges across youth-serving sectors already practicing youth helping and mentoring.
Peer mentoring builds skills that young people can use to contribute to one another and their communities, and actively engages youth people as resources in their schools, congregations and communities, and teaches them social competencies, such as conversational skills, decision-making and building one-to-one relationships.

What Is A Mentor?

A supportive relationship between a youth or young adult and someone more senor in age and experience, who offers support, guidance, and concrete assistance as the younger partner goes through a difficult period, enters a new area of experience, takes on an important task, or corrects an earlier problem. In general, during mentoring, mentees identify with, or form a strong interpersonal attachment to their mentors; as a result, they become able to do for themselves what their mentors have done for them.

A mentor is a role model who has the ability to empower another person to achieve full potential. Throughout a mentoring relationship, a mentor may play many roles, including but not limited to:
•    guide
•    listener
•    teacher
•    confidante
•    self-esteem booster
•    role model
•    advocate
•    advisor
•    talent developer
•    sounding board

School And Community Benefits

A peer and cross-age mentoring program is a powerful tool for any youth organization that wants to spread positive messages throughout its school and community and to help others through the power of teaching. For example, a program offered in your school will help lessen the intimidation that younger students often feel around older students. It can also provide a sense of belonging to the students who volunteer to teach and an outlet to share special skills and abilities.
Successful programs also have the potential to build bridges to peers, other age groups, other ethnic groups, and various socio-economic groups that may not be represented in your school. Sharing positive messages among different groups can make communities stronger by providing opportunities for positive, meaningful interaction. This common understanding can strengthen civic pride and closeness and even lessen the chance of crime in your area.

And most importantly, essential information on the importance of avoiding negative behaviors (such as crime, violence and substance abuse) and of engaging in constructive behaviors (such as community service, exercise and good nutrition) are discussed in a learning environment that is safe and fun, with constructive results.
The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (a part of the U.S. Department of Justice) is a Peer Mentoring Program Sponsor.  For more information, please go to http://www.ojjdp.gov