Title: ESRC Seminar Series Young People and the Benefits and Costs of Mentoring for their Networks of Socia
1 ESRC Seminar SeriesYoung People and the
Benefits and Costs of Mentoring for their
Networks of Social Support
- Dr. Pat Dolan
- Child and Family Research Centre
- National University of Ireland, Galway
2- Specific objectives
- To consider key factors in social support
networks and why for young people this is
important - To explore mentoring in relation to factors in
social support natural helping - Positive and Negative implications
- construct possibilities for policy and practice
of mentoring and social network interventions
3Considerations
- Consider why people offer to mentor or why people
work formally in helping professions? - Interest in humans helping humans within
- a core concept of practice caring perspective
- A belief that people can overcome adversity a
belief that we can help people in this task - Our own needs to deliver our work, support needed
from others to do so
4- Planning and Organisation Service Goal Model
- Applied to mentoring for youth
Targeting
Key point in process
Strengthening
Engaging
Caring
Supporting
5Thinking about your own need - mentoring if
naturally contrived fits the bill
- Who would help you in a crisis?
- Think of the key people you would turn to
- Who could you depend on to be there with you and
for you - Family, Friends, Work colleagues, neighbours
- Generally not professionals
- Set of people forms your network
- May be dependent on context of need
6Defining Social Support
- Responsive acts of assistance between human
beings Tracy and Whittaker (1994) - Many definitions all good - but none the same
- Automatically assumed by most people
- Proven Buffer to Stress role
- Proven area of Social Science (From medical
research)
7 8 A Cupped Model for Understanding Family Support
in a social support context
Child ACHIEVING RIGHTS / MEETING NEEDS
Nuclear Family Other Family / Friends School
/ Community / Leisure Interests Formal Family
Support Practitioners Community / Voluntary /
Statutory Agencies / Services /
Organisations National Policy / Legislation
Mentoring Arena
9Sources of Support for Youth
- Informal
- Formal
- Semi-Formal Sources
- Preferred Source?
- Benefits of informal networks
- Amount in Network issues of Network Size
10Types of Social Support Needed by Young people
- Concrete
- Emotional
- Advice
- Esteem
- Weiss (1974) Classification of Types of Support
- Cutrona (2001)and Transferability of Emotional
Support - - this transferability is a key issue in
practice - e.g. research on
- Children in care Stein and Rees 2000
- Children (family) with Disability Kilpatrick
2001 - Child protection contexts Tunstill 2003
-
11Qualities of Social Support
- Closeness
- Reciprocity
- Admonishment
- Durability
- Note relationship between four qualities
- Context of Events and how one views quality of
support on offer
12Cutronas Model of Optimal Matching Support
Provided Support Needed (2000)
- Types
- Concrete
- Emotional
- Esteem
- Advice
- Quality
- Closeness
- Reciprocity
- Durability
- Source (Networks)
- Informal Help from Family Friends etc
- Formal - Help from Professionals
- Note Importance of Reciprocal Matching Support
Schools - Model RCT Evidence by Dryfoos et al 2005
13Potential of mentoringNeeds vs.. Assets
14Issues of Perceived Social Support
- Perceived support is as important if not more
important than received Social Support - Social Support is in the eye of the beholder
Carolyn Cutrona (1995) - Note myth of network size as a factor
- Range of sources important - not pure amount
(Professionals make this mistake regularly!) - Note connection to resilience and strengths based
perspectives in work with Young people (Gilligan
2000/McGrath 2006)
15Mentoring and Social Support in Practice Contexts
for a young person
- Human Social Capital Building in a child, family,
community - Developmental Assets (Benson model)
- Prospective Social Support Banking Predictable
and contrived coping! - Family Welfare Context
16Limitations of mentoring with youth
- Issues of construct - evangelical stand alone
fidelity - Spread of Schools on its purpose and value e.g.
economic gain v sociability value - Dependent on other factors and lost in the
perception of priorities by professionals (e.g.
often overlooked in child protection cases
Parton 1997) - Issues of Recent History - For both mentee and
mentor
17Limitations of mentoring to parenting
- Evidence is that parents like to have their child
mentored (Tierney 1996/Rhodes) - ? Possibility of undermining parent middle class
mentor v poor mentee family - ? Possibility of Fathers abdicating engagement
- Increase dependency belief of mothers and fathers
- All above are uncharted waters in research
- See work of Rhodes Phillip Colley.
18Tools for Measuring mentoring and immpact on
social networks in adolescence - which is agenda
free!
- Social Network Map (Tracy and Whittaker, 1984)
- Social Network Questionnaire (Cutrona and
Russell, 1981) - Social Provisions Scale Adolescent Version
(Cutrona and Dolan 2002) - Bryant - Neighbourhood Walk
- Issues of Reliability and Validity in respect of
tools Vs solely testimonial evidence
19Possibilities for mentoring YouthA Friend in
respect of !!!
- In context of direct work as part of a programme
plan - As part of needs led practice
- As part of resiliency capacity building
- As part of a buffer to dealing with problems in
response to life events - In context of working with children in child
protection, alternative care and family support
Programmes - Note common interest value between adult and
child - Mentor from network or extended family option?
20Measuring Coping as a way of measuring the
success of a programme - through a major youth
study (first of its kind)
- Castlebar, Boyle and Ballina NYPs (n172)
- Tracking Study over nine months Pre and post with
bimonthly measures (n40) - in liaison with a Satisfaction Survey (Gavigan
2001)
- Social Network Measure (SNM)
- Social Support (SPS)
- Mental Health (GHQ)
- Wellbeing (AWS)
- Life Events (APES)
- Staff View
21Using a Measure with a focus on having enough
support and all types less concentration on
source which is also more child friendly
- Social Provisions Scale
- Cutrona and Russell 1987 (Iowa State University,
USA) - Fours Source grouping
- Friends Parents/Carers
- Siblings Other Adults
- Four Types of Support
- Concrete Emotional Esteem and Advice
- Total Score and sub scores
- User Child Friendly Re-design (Dolan and Cutrona)
- Family Support for Reflective Practice (Dolan
Pinkerton and Canavan Forthcoming)
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23Some key Findings about young people and their
need for support Dolan (2006)
- 30 of young people had caseness in terms of
their mental health - High levels of support/ plentiful sources of
natural help (an indicator toward choosing the
mentor?) - Strong incite into their problems
- High levels of support from parents despite
difficulties - low support from siblings - Extended family important
- low rate of close friends (20 no close friend)
- Low show for professionals in networks
- Improvement across all factors over time by all
five measures used and statistically significant
relationship between social support and mental
health
24Common Sense - we need to hear more from young
people on the capacity of mentoring Confident
of your internal critic!If I were young again
and needed support would mentoring work for me,
if so what would be best?