LifeXchange - Youth Development

 The term mentoring dates back to 800 B.C. and are present in most ancient writings. Simply put, mentoring “is a structured and trusting relationship that brings young people together with caring individuals who offer guidance, support and encouragement aimed at developing the competence and character of the mentee.” Interestingly enough, it is only in the last decade that mentoring has grown in popularity. In 2003, President George Bush allocated $450 million to creating mentoring programmes. This resulted in more than 4500 mentoring agencies in the USA alone and today similar programmes and initiatives are increasingly appearing in other countries.

Research indicates that mentoring is working as an intervention approach! The one-on-one nature, personalized care and interest and ‘natural life skills development’ all contributes to this. This said, in her paper, Improving Youth Mentoring Interventions Through Research-based Practice, Jean E. Rodes (2008) says that even though research suggests that, “when done well, mentoring is an effective intervention strategy for some young people,” and that “one-to-one mentoring programmes have proved evidence of their success in promoting better social, academic, and behavioural outcomes”, but that, “evidence is in relatively short supply”. If not done well, mentoring can be detrimental, thus it is this “short supply” of evidence and information concerning effective mentoring that LifeXchange is currently feeding through developing, monitoring and applying well researched mentoring approaches.