Mentoring News Post

October 10, 2023, Durham, NC – iRT is pleased to announce that it has received a grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) to explore the characteristics of effective mentors who are mentoring children of incarcerated parents (COIP). Recent reports have shown that over 2.6 million youth have an incarcerated caregiver in the United States.1 COIP often face family instability, stigmatization, and stress that may put them at risk for negative developmental outcomes. For example, research has shown that COIP may be at an increased risk for substance use in late childhood and early adolescence, including alcohol, cannabis, and [...]

July 17, 2023, Durham, NC – iRT Research Scientist Dr. Rebecca Stelter is a member of a working group with other researchers from the National Mentoring Resource Center (NMRC) Research Board contributing to the development of a youth-informed guide for young people seeking or entering a mentoring relationship. The guide will soon be freely available on the NMRC website. Impactful mentoring relationships involve informed participation from both mentors and mentees as well as support from mentoring program staff and parents. Mentees must feel equally equipped for the mentoring relationship as their mentor, be informed about their role as mentee, and learn [...]

April 24, 2023, Durham, NC – iRT President and Senior Research Scientist Dr. Janis Kupersmidt will be presenting at the 2023 National Institute of Justice (NIJ) National Research Conference in Arlington, Virginia on May 23. Kupersmidt will present as a panelist in a conference session entitled Promoting Evidence-Based Youth Mentoring: The Benefits of Researcher-Practitioner Collaborations to discuss the results and policy implications from the evaluation of the effectiveness of implementing enhanced mentoring practices in mentoring programs serving children of incarcerated caregivers. The NIJ National Research Conference brings researchers and practitioners together from across the nation to share, discuss, and learn about [...]

April 03, 2023, Durham, NC – As rates of incarceration in the United States have steadily climbed for the past 40 years, providing high quality support to children of incarcerated parents has become increasingly important to limit negative impacts on their self-esteem, relationships with their parents, and sense of the future, among other harmful effects. Mentoring programs can reduce negative behavioral, social, emotional, and cognitive outcomes for children of incarcerated parents by providing youth with opportunities for growth and engagement in supportive relationships. iRT conducts research on mentoring best practices to assist mentoring programs serving children of incarcerated parents and help [...]

April 03, 2023, Durham, NC – Are you looking for training programs and evaluation resources to take your mentoring program to the next level? Mentoring Central’s annual membership is your one-stop shop for access to a large array of training, evaluation, and mentoring-related products for your mentoring program. Whether your program offers Community-based mentoring, Site-based mentoring, e-Mentoring, Group mentoring, or some combination of these program models, the membership package will meet the needs of your program. With access to all of Mentoring Central’s trainings through our annual membership, you can enroll mentors, program staff, mentees, and parents or guardians of mentees [...]