CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Foster children who get mentors show improvement in their peer relationships, a building block that helps them to develop trust in other people, a new study says.
With an estimated 5 million American youth in school- and community-based volunteer mentoring programs, questions are being asked about the nature and influence of mentor-child relationships. The study -- published in the current issue of the quarterly Journal of Research on Adolescence -- sheds insight into how and why mentoring works for foster children.
"The bottom line is that kids in foster care, if they got a mentor, actually showed improvement in peer relationships," said Jean E. Rhodes, a professor of psychology at the University of Illinois. "Those kids who did not get a mentor showed decrements in their peer relationships."
Rhodes and colleagues are examining the underlying processes by which mentors promote change and the conditions under which interventions work the best, based on long-term data compiled from some 1,000 urban adolescents who participated in a national study of Big Brothers-Big Sisters.
In the original study, the youth were assessed for changes in social and academic behaviors 18 months after being randomly assigned to mentors or to a control, non-mentoring situation. The study reported decreases in drug and alcohol use and in antisocial behavior among mentored youth, but stopped short of identifying why and with whom the program works.
"Our study says something developmentally about the lives of these children," Rhodes said. "Not only can children in foster care learn to trust adults, they can actually benefit from such a relationship. Despite abuse or neglect or any number of reasons that have separated them from their parents, many of these kids still have a spark that enables them to form a relationship."
The study -- co-written by Rhodes; Wendy Haight, a professor of social work; and former graduate student Ernestine C. Briggs -- was funded by the Children and Family Research Center, a collaboration of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services and the University of Illinois; and the William T. Grant Foundation.
Building trust, however, doesn't come quickly or easily. In a related study, Rhodes and her colleagues looked at the length of mentoring relationships. When ended within six months, there were increases in alcohol use and smoking, disruptions in parent and peer relationships and lowering of self-esteem.
Slight improvements were seen in six- to 12-month relationships, but those lasting 12 to 18 months yielded dramatic academic, psychosocial and behavioral outcomes, Rhodes said. Preliminary findings show that children whose mentors provide moderate levels of support and structure reap the greatest benefits.
"We need to support these relationships and take them quite seriously," she said. "We are asking at-risk kids to open themselves up to somebody. We can't just take whatever mentor happens to show up and hope that it works. We need mentors who have plenty of time to share."
Journal
Journal of Research on Adolescence