The Mentoring Enhancement Demonstration Program (MEDP) evaluation followed more than 2,000 mentoring matches across those programs from 2013 to 2016, and this document analyzes aspects of MEDP’s findings to determine whether tailored mentoring in the context of nontargeted programs can yield stronger effects than mentoring that is not tailored to a specific youth need.
This brief presents findings from a research study that addressed five guiding questions about whether and how mentors tailored their approaches to support youths’ behavioral, emotional, or academic needs. The research study included 30 mentoring programs across the United States that varied based on size, approach, geographic location, and populations served. The authors present their findings on what mentors focused on during their mentoring interactions and if they tailored activities to their youths’ specific needs; how mentors determined whether and how to tailor their activities; if tailored mentoring was associated with relationship quality; if tailored mentoring was linked with more positive outcomes than the alternative; implications of findings for serving specific youth populations; and how mentor programs should plan for change, training, and ongoing support.