One adult who is crazy about you: Can natural mentoring relationships increase assets among young adults with and without foster care experience?

Abstract

During emerging adulthood, most youth receive family support to help them weather the difficulties associated with transitioning to independence. When foster youth emancipate, they confront the challenges associated with emerging adulthood, and are at risk of having to transition without family support. Many are in danger of failing to meet minimal levels of self-sufficiency. A caring adult who offers social support is normative for adolescent development and protective for youth across many risk conditions. Natural mentoring can cultivate such relationships. This study examines the association between natural mentor relationship characteristics, and material hardship and asset-related outcomes during the emerging adulthood period in both a normative sample of young adults and young adults identified as former foster youth. This study also considers the potential mediating effect of future expectations. Data from Wave 3 of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health that pertain to 15,197 respondents are used. Path models with categorical dependent variables were estimated using a Maximum Likelihood method with standard errors that are robust to non-normality and non-independence of observations. “Like a parent,” “role model,” and “guidance/advice” were significantly associated with assets among both groups. This study contributes to the growing body of literature on natural mentoring and former foster youth, and highlights the value of increasing our understanding of natural mentor roles for intervention development. The focus on assets-related outcomes is a novel approach to investigating the benefits of natural mentoring to the healthy development of youth. This paper is the first to consider the association between natural mentoring and assets building among both former and nonformer foster youth.

The Functions and Longitudinal Outcomes of Adolescents’ Naturally Occurring Mentorships

“…We expected that youth reports of how mentors helped them would include descriptions of mentoring functions similar to those outlined by Kram (1985), Chen et al (2003), Greeson et al (2010), Nora and Crisp (2007), Schwartz, Rhodes, Spencer and Grossman (2013b), Spencer (2010), and Tolan et al (2014). These frameworks cross boundaries of prot eg e age, relationship type, and relationship goals capturing the array of mentoring functions described in the current literature.…”

“…These practical means of support have been identified by few past models of adolescent mentoring (cf. Chen et al, 2003;Greeson et al, 2010;Schwartz et al, 2013b) and made up a very small portion of overall responses. However, their value should be considered by future research.…”

“…Mentors can also model emotion regulation and provide opportunities to develop these skills. Other mentoring functions that may promote psychological wellbeing include acting as a friend or parent, providing emotional support, counseling, and showing positive regard for the adolescent (Chen et al, 2003;Greeson, Usher & Grinstein-Weiss, 2010;Kram, 1985;Spencer, 2010). These formative experiences around positive self-concept may have lasting implications for adolescents' psychological well-being that persist into adulthood (Hoyt et al, 2012;Hurd & Zimmerman, 2014).…”

“…Wave I (n = 6504) was used to determine basic demographic information such as age, biological sex, and ethnicity, as well as potential personal and environmental risk factors such as parent receiving public assistance, and feelings of safety in the neighborhood (Table 1). These variables were used as covariates for all analyses and were selected based on relevant natural mentoring literature (DuBois & Silverthorn, 2005a,b;Greeson et al, 2010).…”

“…were coded by two researchers using existing frameworks (Chen et al, 2003;Greeson et al, 2010;Kram, 1985;Nora & Crisp, 2007;Spencer, 2010;Tolan et al, 2014), while remaining open to the emergence of themes not represented in existing frameworks-a procedure similar to that used in the examination of adolescents' reports of family values (Wray-Lake, Flanagan, Benavides & Shubert, 2014). Coders examined responses three times.…”