October 08, 2026, Durham, NC – Mentoring Central, a division of iRT, has received a Phase I Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) award from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), to develop and evaluate the Building Assets Together (BAT) Toolkit for youth mentors. The project, led by iRT Research Scientist, Dr. Rebecca Stelter, will develop a new approach to providing mentors with practical, ongoing training and support throughout their mentoring relationships.

For many mentoring programs, mentor training is concentrated before the mentoring relationship begins. Initial onboarding training can provide an important foundation for building an effective relationship by preparing volunteers for their roles, responsibilities, goals, activities and communication with mentees. However, once mentors begin meeting with their mentees, they encounter new situations, questions, and opportunities that can be difficult to anticipate during initial training.

Mentors may wonder: How can I continue building a strong and effective relationship once introductions and becoming acquainted is over? What should we do together? How can I support my mentee’s goals without taking over? How can our everyday conversations and activities contribute to positive youth development?

Providing this type of ongoing support can also require significant time and resources from mentoring program staff. The BAT Toolkit is being developed to help bridge this gap in resources by providing mentors with brief, practical, research-informed guidance throughout the mentoring relationship, while giving programs a scalable way to deliver that support. The project is designed to provide accessible, theory-based, engaging, and practical ongoing training and support for mentors.

Bringing Ongoing Mentor Support into Everyday Practice

The BAT Toolkit will be a multimedia, web-based toolkit delivered by mentoring program virtually through Mentoring Central’s learning management system. Rather than relying solely on training delivered before a match begins, the Toolkit will use brief, accessible learning experiences to provide mentors with strategies and activity ideas as their relationships develop.

The content will be informed by research on youth mentoring, positive youth development, and self-determination theory. Mentoring program staff and education professionals will contribute to its development to help ensure the Toolkit is relevant across different mentoring program models and settings and will be developmentally appropriate for mentors working with mentees who are in elementary through high school.

Flexible Support for Mentors and Mentoring Programs

Just as mentoring relationships differ, programs also vary in how and when they provide ongoing support. The BAT Toolkit is being designed with that flexibility in mind.

As part of the project, iRT will enhance the Mentoring Central learning management system so program staff can automatically release content in emails or text messages and can customize times when mentors receive content based upon their program’s unique schedule. Mentors will be able to access the Toolkit content across digital devices, helping make ongoing learning easier to incorporate into their busy personal and travel schedules. This unique approach to utilizing online learning that is under the control of individual mentoring programs is intended to give mentors useful guidance as their relationships evolve, while reducing some of the ongoing burden on program staff members of continuously developing and delivering training experiences and materials themselves.

Pre-match training can prepare mentors to begin the relationship. The Toolkit will be designed to help them navigate what comes next.

Developing and Testing the BAT Toolkit

During Phase I of this project, the iRT research team will focus on three primary goals including developing the BAT Toolkit prototype, enhancing the Mentoring Central platform to support its delivery, and evaluating the Toolkit with mentoring program staff and mentors.

The team will conduct a Usability Study with mentoring program staff to evaluate the software enhancements and a Feasibility Study with mentors to learn more about their experiences using the BAT Toolkit.

Supporting Mentors Beyond the Initial Training

Strong mentoring relationships develop over time, and the support mentors need can evolve along as well. Through the BAT Toolkit, iRT aims to create a practical way for mentoring programs to extend training beyond the pre-match stage and provide mentors with research-informed guidance they can put into practice throughout their mentoring relationship.

By combining ongoing microlearning with flexible delivery through Mentoring Central, the Toolkit will be designed to make that support easier for programs to provide and easier for mentors to access at times when they most need it.

Follow the Development of the BAT Toolkit

iRT is excited to begin developing and evaluating the Building Assets Together Toolkit. Stay connected with us for project updates, research opportunities, and results as we work to create new ways to support mentors throughout their mentoring relationships.