The document outlines a webinar series on innovative mentoring strategies, emphasizing the significance of mentor-mentee relationships over mere matching. It discusses research findings on effective mentoring practices and highlights best practices for matching youth and mentors based on shared interests. Additionally, it includes details about participants, future webinar topics, and contact information for the organizers.

1. Innovative Matching
Strategies
Collaboration of Education Northwest/National
Mentoring Center, Friends for Youth, Mentoring
Partnership of Minnesota, and Oregon Mentors
March 2012

2. Good to Know…
All attendees will receive an email after the webinar
that will include:
 Link to presentation slides
 Link to an online recording of webinar
 Resources
 Contact information
Please help us by taking the time to complete a
short 5-question survey as you exit the webinar.
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3. 2012 Collaborative Mentoring
Webinar Series
o Research Celeste Janssen
Program Director
o Practice Oregon Mentors
o Innovation
Sarah Kremer
Date: Third Thursday of every month. Program Director
Friends for Youth’s Mentoring
Institute
Time: 10-11:15am Pacific/11am-
12:15pm Mountain/12-1:15 pm
April Riordan
Central/1-2:15pm Easter Director of Training & Partnerships
Mentoring Partnership of
Minnesota
Cost: Free
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4. Participate in Today’s Webinar
• All attendees muted for best
sound
• Type questions and
comments in the question
box
• We may invite you to “raise
your hand” during interactive
activities
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5. Rethinking the Role of the
Relationship in Youth Mentoring
1. Do all mentoring matches =
mentoring relationships?
2. What % of your matches are
relationships?
3. If the relationship is the “heart”
of mentoring, what does that mean
for matches that aren’t very strong?
4. Is the only “prize” a long, strong
match?
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6. Podcast: Interview with Dr. Tim Cavell
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7. A new definition of youth mentoring?
Proposed, working definition:
Youth mentoring is the practice of
using program-sponsored
relationships as a context for
providing youth with prevention-
Tim Cavell, Ph.D.
focused activities and
experiences.
The experience CAN be a long, strong relationship…
But it can also be short-term and focused.
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8. Lunch Buddy Mentoring
• Stand alone, school-based mentoring
• Designed to restrict the quality of the
mentoring relationship
• Limited training
• No supervision (monitoring only)
• Mentoring during school lunch time
only
• Seated with other lunch mates
• A different mentor each semester
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9. Match vs. Relationship
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10. Consider, also, the recent meta-
analysis by DuBois et al. (2011)
• No effects for match duration
• No effects for meeting match length
expectations
• No effects for match quality
• Average duration of 6 exemplary
mentoring programs cited was < 9
months! (range was 4 to 12 months)
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11. Table 2. Study-Level Variables (Moderators) Associated With Differences in Effect Size.
“Stronger program effects
were found to be associated with the matching of youth and
mentor’s based on similarity of interests.”
DuBois D L et al. Psychological Science in the Public Copyright © by Association for Psychological Science
Interest 2011;12:57-91

12. EEP Standards
11 EEP3

13. Gathering Matching Information
• Mentor application
• Screening – Interviews,
references
• Interest inventories
• Observations
• Motivations
• Input from parents, school
staff, and other providers
• Establishing personal
relationships
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14. iMentor
Ellen Mahoney's ten years of work in
adolescent education has been driven by
the belief that all children can succeed with
the right community support and equal
access to opportunities. Ellen has enjoyed
8 years of volunteer experience as a
mentor and tutor for The Lab School of
Washington, The Latin American Youth
Center in DC, and Girls, Inc in Oregon.
ELLEN MAHONEY
DIRECTOR OF PROGRAM
QUALITY
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17. Improving mentoring success through a
research-based matching strategy
Currently agency-level staff workers match mentors
to youth through a process that varies from agency
to agency and is largely unknown to the researcher.
Potentially, we could use mentor and mentee
characteristics known at the time of match to
optimize the process.
This could allow agencies to be scientific about
what makes for best matching practices and impose
these practices uniformly across offices.
Rhodes (UMass) and Featherstone (Harvard
Business School) are working with programs to
develop more effective matching strategies
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19. Friends of the Children
Joe started out at Friends of the
Children 10 years ago as a paid,
professional mentor (Friend) to 8
boys. He believes deeply that
mentoring relationships have the
power to transform a young
person’s life, especially those who
have many socio-economic
obstacles to overcome.
Joe Bergen
Program Director
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20. Youth Transition Placement Process
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21. Meet-n-Greet
Although the “magic” of
a natural connection is
viewed as the primary
matching tool, this
should nevertheless be
secondary to findings
from research…
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22. Friends for Youth
Matching supported by
In-depth application process
• Mentors interviewed extensively,
including experiences
• Mentees interviewed alone
• Parents/caregivers interviewed
about “preferences”
• Referral agent gives input on
strengths, needs, challenges at
beginning
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23. Friends for Youth
Matching supported by
Pre-Match Training
• Includes use of profiles of actual
mentees (already matched) and
questions to answer about both
mentor and mentee strengths and
challenges, as well as possible
activities
• Also includes 12+ scenarios relating
to actual common situations
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24. Friends for Youth
Matching supported by
Match meetings
• After final decision of acceptance, program
staff discusses possible matches (minimum
1 hour length)
• Consider preferences (age, gender, ethnic
background, religion, geographic location,
interests) and personalities
• Review experiences to look for similarities
OR situations to avoid
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25. On the other hand, our old ways
were once new, weren't they?...
Waiting list…? A match!
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26. Before we go…
All attendees will receive an email after the webinar
that will include:
 Link to presentation slides
 Link to an online recording of webinar
 Resources
 Contact information
Please help us by taking the time to complete a
short 5-question survey as you exit the webinar.
25

27. Future Webinars
April 19- Youth Engagement in
Mentoring Programs
In honor of Global Youth Service Day, learn
how mentoring programs are engaging
mentees in leadership roles and
encouraging matches to serve together.
Amanda Larson from the National Youth
Leadership Council (NYLC) will join us
along with other panelists to talk about the
importance and impact of honoring youth
voice in our programs and in our matches.
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28. Thank you!
Collaboration of Education Northwest/National
Mentoring Center, Friends for Youth, Mentoring
Partnership of Minnesota, and Oregon Mentors
Michael Garringer, michael.garringer@educationnorthwest.org
Celeste Janssen, celeste@oregonmentors.org
Sarah Kremer, sarah@friendsforyouth.org
April Riordan, april@mpmn.org