The Youth Mentoring Action Network commits to further developing the concept of critical mentoring and building its supporting body of work. The Youth Mentoring Action Network will: 1) Engage key mentoring and youth development organizations to assess the need and support for this work; 2) Establish working guidelines for the practical implementation of critical mentoring in todays college/career readiness programming; 3) Identify and develop resources such as staff/volunteer training and curriculum materials to scale the reach; and 4) Collaborate with researchers to increase learning in this area.
The Youth Mentoring Action Network has been leading this work locally and nationally through collaborations with MENTOR. Summer Search is an organization that has been at the forefront of college access and success for youth of color who are often first generation. They engage in critical mentoring processes with the over 3,200 high school students they currently serve. The partners in the commitment represent key stakeholders who are specifically engaged in work that serves youth of color. They will serve as advisors to this work and as gateways to broader networks that can effectively activate this work.
The YMAN will organize and convene a community of leaders including researchers and practitioners who can support the development and expansion of the concept. This group of key thought and practitioner leaders will further develop the critical mentoring concept via a symposia, creating a documented call to action and initial set of best practices that can be shared with the wider community. This convening will also produce a call to action for mentoring programs to begin seeking out ways to make their mentoring more culturally relevant. These stakeholders will further develop the critical mentoring concept via a symposia, establish practical guidelines for the practitioner community, and identify a set of trainings and curricula to widen the scale and impact of critical mentoring. The convening will include a total of 20 people to include representatives from Mentor, Summer Search, National CARES, Amped Strategies, Youth Mentoring Action Network 5 researchers focused on studying mentoring and cultural competence, and 5 community stakeholders from community organizations who employ critical mentoring strategies and can be looked at for best practices. Commission a small group of researchers to begin collecting data on programs that are utilizing what the core group has identified as the basis of critical mentoring practice. This group will focus on a specific set of core elements to look for and study in programs nationwide, even internationally. Create viable ways to collect data on how critical mentoring is or is not influencing the work in the field (possibly provide incentives for organizations willing to step up to collect common data points). The 5 researchers included in the original convening will produce at least 5 pieces of research in the form of journal articles or reports that can be used to for the development of training curriculum. Also, the National Mentoring Summit convened by Mentor will be host to a special symposium on critical mentoring that will attract at least 100 participants who will be able to hear about initial findings and show interest in future trainings offered.
Finally, the Youth Mentoring Action Network, will develop a set of training/webinars/ workshops based on standards set and research results to begin piloting. This set of training and curriculum materials will support mentoring and youth development organizations in their adoption of critical mentoring practices. The goal will be to develop an initial set of two training sessions to be co-developed and facilitated by Amped Strategies and the Youth Mentoring Action Network. Each training session will include recent research and identified best practices. The first is meant to be a critical mentoring overview and the second will focus on the applicability of the concept in both mentoring and youth development programs as it relates to actual organizational practices. There is a goal of 200 attendees for the webinars.
August 2016
Organize and convene a community of leaders including researchers and practitioners who can support the development and expansion of the concept. This group of key thought and practitioner leaders will further develop the critical mentoring concept via a symposia, creating a documented call to action and initial set of best practices that can be shared with the wider community. This convening will also produce a call to action for mentoring programs to begin seeking out ways to make their mentoring more culturally relevant. These stakeholders will further develop the critical mentoring concept via a symposia, establish practical guidelines for the practitioner community, and identify a set of trainings and curricula to widen the scale and impact of critical mentoring. The convening will include a total of 20 people to include representatives from Mentor, Summer Search, National CARES, Amped Strategies, Youth Mentoring Action Network 5 researchers focused on studying mentoring and cultural competence, and 5 community stakeholders from community organizations who employ critical mentoring strategies and can be looked at for best practices.
September 2016 - April 2017
Commission a small group of researchers to begin collecting data on programs that are utilizing what the core group has identified as the basis of critical mentoring practice. This group will focus on a specific set of core elements to look for and study in programs nationwide, even internationally. Create viable ways to collect data on how critical mentoring is or is not influencing the work in the field (possibly provide incentives for organizations willing to step up to collect common data points). The 5 researchers included in the original convening will produce at least 5 pieces of research in the form of journal articles or reports that can be used to for the development of training curriculum. Also, the National Mentoring Summit convened by Mentor will be host to a special symposium on critical mentoring that will attract at least 100 participants who will be able to hear about initial findings and show interest in future trainings offered.
May 2017 - July2017
Develop a set of training/webinars/ workshops based on standards set and research results to begin piloting. This set of training and curriculum materials will support mentoring and youth development organizations in their adoption of critical mentoring practices. The goal will be to develop an initial set of two training sessions to be co-developed and facilitated by Amped Strategies and the Youth Mentoring Action Network. Each training session will include recent research and identified best practices. The first is meant to be a critical mentoring overview and the second will focus on the applicability of the concept in both mentoring and youth development programs as it relates to actual organizational practices.
Today's knowledge economy requires that all students acquire both academic and technical skills that will ensure they are properly prepared for at least some postsecondary education and/or training. Preparing young people to enter the college and/or career field is a necessary task and one that requires wrap around supports both on and off of schools campuses. The mission that is college and career readiness means that schools and communities must forge powerful relationships, through mentoring, to provide the guidance and support students need. But, it also means addressing larger and more structural issues of inequity. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, between 1990 and 2014, the percentage of Whites who had attained at least a high school diploma or its equivalent remained higher than that of Blacks and Hispanics. During those same years, the gap between Whites and Blacks in the rate of attaining a bachelor's or higher degree widened from 13 to 18 percentage points, and the gap between Whites and Hispanics in attaining this education level widened from 18 to 26 percentage points.
Mentoring has been highlighted as an effective strategy for youth development and boasts many evidence-based practices that ensure that students with mentors also perform well in school. The problem lies in that there is little connection between the structural inequities driving the sobering data on which students succeed in college and what happens inside of mentoring relationships that aim to promote college and career readiness. Mentors often focus on academic preparedness and exposure to college and career without having open discussions about racism in higher education or career fields; or about the differences between attending predominately white institutions versus historically Black colleges and universities and Hispanic-serving institutions; or the economic challenges to pursuing and earning a degree. This results in mentoring missing the mark in effectively preparing students of color for genuine college and career preparedness. Critical mentoring means integrating and interrogating context so that mentoring adolescents is culturally relevant and creates a space for honesty, critical consciousness and ultimately, transformation.
The Youth Mentoring Action Network seeks cooperation from major mentoring and youth development partners to help garner national attention to the concept, contribute to the development of materials, and possibly engage their networks in a future pilot process.. The Youth Mentoring Action Network also seeks the funding support required to convene, discuss, and develop training and curriculum materials. Funding support will also be needed to support the researchers who will study the implementation of the process to highlight evidence-based best practices and outcomes impacted.
The Youth Mentoring Action Network will provide a set of foundational documents for critical mentoring and convene a symposium for implementing partners to meet, discuss, and establish an implementation and data collection plan. In direct partnership with Amped Strategies, the Youth Mentoring Action Network will also lead the development of training and curriculum materials for wider implementation.
