Abstract
Research on the impact of mentoring for youth in foster care is emerging. Mentoring appears to be highly acceptable to youth in foster care, and mentors are reported to provide life-changing informational, instrumental, and emotional support to young people who often lack consistent adults to help them navigate the many challenges they face. Available research suggests that mentoring for children in foster care (across a range of ages and mentoring formats) can have positive impacts on key domains of public health interest, including mental health, educational functioning and attainment, peer relationships, placement outcomes, and life satisfaction. Mentoring has demonstrated null or mixed results, however, for other outcomes, including social skills, attachment to adults, physical health, employment and financial assets, risky behaviours and associated negative life-course outcomes (e.g., substance use, delinquency, arrests) among this population. Because of the interpersonal vulnerability and high potential for adverse outcomes among youth in foster care, great care and coordination is required when implementing mentoring programs. If done well, however, the health promotion benefits of mentoring may be realized and youth in foster care may experience positive outcomes across a range of domains. Mentoring for children in foster care should be considered as one potential strategy for the prevention of adverse outcomes among this vulnerable population.
This chapter is from from Re-Visioning Public Health Approaches for Protecting Children.