June 1, 2000 | Read Time: 1 minute
Mentoring School-Age Children: Relationship Development in Community-Based and School-Based Programs, by Carla Herrera, Cynthia L. Sipe, and Wendy S. McClanahan, is a study from Public/Private Ventures commissioned by the Public Policy Council of the National Mentoring Partnership, in Washington, to gauge the extent to which youths and mentors develop close and supportive relationships in one-on-one programs. Researchers interviewed 346 mentors from community-based programs and 323 mentors from school-based programs, and analyzed the empirical aspects, such as cost, of both types of programs. While they found that schools can provide mentor programs more cheaply than community groups can, a slightly higher percentage of mentors in community-based programs said that they had strong relationships with youths. The authors conclude that mentors and youths find shared interests more easily in community programs, where the emphasis is skewed to social activities, as opposed to the academic focus of many school-based programs. The report was financed by the U.S. Department of Education.
Publisher: Public/Private Ventures, 1 Commerce Square, 2005 Market Street, Suite 900, Philadelphia, Pa. 19103; (215) 557-4400; fax (215) 557-4469; http://www.ppv.org; 48 pages; free.
