October 20, 2025, Durham, NC – iRT is excited to announce that we have received a grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to complete the development a novel mentoring training program for STEM mentors.

Why we’re doing it.

In the United States, the number of young people pursuing careers related to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is diminishing. Mentoring programs that aim to give young people support as they explore STEM subjects may inspire young people to pursue a future in STEM fields. The supportive relationships that mentees create with mentors through STEM mentoring programs may also help them persevere when they are met with challenges during their exploration of STEM instead of giving up pursuit of a STEM-related career or education. Mentor training is an important part of preparing mentors for their role as a mentor so they can support mentees in this way. Because no mentor training exists to prepare mentors for the nuances of STEM mentoring programs, our team will use the new grant to develop a new STEM mentor training, called EmpowerSTEM, to help STEM mentoring programs achieve their goals.

Why us?

Mentoring Central, a division of iRT, is on the forefront of STEM mentoring resource development. We are the first to develop a training program specifically for volunteer mentors involved in STEM mentoring programs. Our team has experience developing training programs and content specifically for STEM mentors as well as dozens of evidence-based training programs for any new or experienced mentor. Mentoring Central is comprised of a team of experts in the field of youth mentoring who are well-versed in research on the impacts of STEM mentoring, effective preparation of volunteers for mentoring, and development of cutting-edge training programs.

What’s next?

With funding from the NIH, Mentoring Central will complete the development of the web-based EmpowerSTEM training to help STEM mentors understand the unique needs of mentees who have limited access to STEM professionals and experiences, build supportive relationships with mentees, encourage their mentees to engage and persist in STEM fields, and promote their mentees’ sense of belonging in STEM. The training will be developed using research on the factors that impact youth recruitment in STEM, input from STEM mentoring program staff and mentors, and findings on the effectiveness of pre-match, web-based mentor training. Mentoring Central will design the program to be customizable so that program staff can add or remove lessons from the training to fit the unique needs of their program. The training will also be accessible and mobile-friendly.

Following the development of EmpowerSTEM, Mentoring Central will conduct a randomized controlled trial of the program to evaluate how it impacts STEM mentors’ knowledge and attitudes related to STEM mentoring as well as to assess implementation of the training in mentoring programs.

If you are interested in staying up-to-date on this project and resources for STEM mentoring programs, sign up for the Mentoring Central newsletter at https://irtinc.us/#newsletter.

 

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