July 30, 1998 | Read Time: 2 minutes
About one in three adults has served as a mentor to a troubled youth at some point, and one in seven is currently volunteering as a mentor, according to a new survey commissioned by the Commonwealth Fund in New York.
The poll found that a greater percentage of people said they had volunteered to work one-on-one with a needy youngster than the percentage who said they had helped youngsters in many other ways. Twenty-six per cent said they had helped kids by volunteering at a recreational organization, such as a camp, while 21 per cent said they had served as a tutor.
However, serving as a mentor was less popular than volunteering for a Little League team or other youth sports team (37 per cent), leading a Boy Scout or Girl Scout troop (38 per cent), or serving as a Sunday-school teacher or other religious instructor (47 per cent).
The survey — which was conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates — polled 9,000 adults, age 18 or older, to determine how many had served as mentors. From that sample, 1,504 people who said they had been mentors within the past five years were interviewed over the telephone about their experiences.
Among the mentors who participated in in-depth interviews, the vast majority (83 per cent) said they became mentors in an informal manner, such as an introduction to a needy youngster by a relative or a priest. Only 17 per cent said they became mentors through a formal program, such as one run by Big Brothers/Big Sisters.
The Commonwealth Fund says it commissioned the poll to fill what it sees as an information gap about mentors and to help charities and other groups expand their pool of mentors.
To obtain a free copy of the report, “The Commonwealth Fund 1998 Survey of Adults Mentoring Young People,” contact the fund’s publication department, One East 75th Street, New York 10021-2692; (212) 606-3840; e-mail cmwf@cmwf.org. A summary of the findings can also be found on the group’s World-Wide Web site at http://www.cmwf.org.
