Abstract
Mentoring programs are a common positive youth development intervention that serve children of
incarcerated parents (COIP). COIP are a particularly vulnerable population because they are exposed to a
multitude of challenges, including family instability, stigmatization, and stress. A growing literature highlights
the negative outcomes associated with being a COIP, including substance use in late childhood and early
adolescence. Non-parental adult mentors can provide vital support to COIP. Limited research, however, has
been conducted to explore characteristics of mentors that may make them more effective in mitigating negative
outcomes and promoting positive outcomes in youth. With this R03, we aim to fill the gap in the available
research by identifying characteristics of effective mentors working with vulnerable youth. We will leverage an
existing, recently collected dataset of over 1,300 COIP, their mentors, and their parents or custodial caregivers
from 20 mentoring programs across 15 states. The dataset represents a diverse population of vulnerable youth
(mean age=11.2 years; SD=2.13 years) and includes background information about the caregiver’s
incarceration. 50% of the sample were girls and approximately 53% were Black and 36% were White; 22% were
Hispanic/Latinx. 24% had multiple caregivers who had been incarcerated. 46% had a caregiver who was
currently incarcerated and the remaining 54% had a caregiver who had been previously incarcerated during the
youth’s lifetime. The majority of the youth knew about their caregiver’s incarceration (85.55%) and 17% of the
mentee sample had witnessed the arrest of their incarcerated caregiver. Before being matched with a COIP
mentee, mentors completed a baseline assessment in which they reported whether or not they worked in a
helping profession, whether they had any experience with incarceration or parental incarceration, their
attitudes toward youth, empathy, volunteer role identity, and personality characteristics. We hypothesize that
mentor characteristics will be associated with more positive youth outcomes (e.g., lower substance use,
externalizing, internalizing problems) and match outcomes (e.g., length and quality of the mentoring
relationship) for COIP. Several included mentor characteristics represented having a positive orientation
towards working with youth such as being from a helping profession and having personal experience with
incarceration (i.e., being a “credible messenger”). They involve high levels of empathy, as they entail working
with others who might be vulnerable or greater awareness of issues related to caregiver incarceration. Analyses
will be conducted using a series of multilevel moderated growth curves, multilevel logistic regressions, and
survival analyses. The findings from this R03 will add to our knowledge base about the mentor characteristics
that can improve the impact of this popular intervention for COIP. The ultimate goal of this work will be to help
guide programs to identify mentors who may need additional training or support before beginning their
mentoring matches.