Family involvement in the youth mentoring process: A focus group study with program staff

• There is scant empirical study of mentoring program family involvement practices.
• Family involvement approaches and their intended goals can vary considerable.
• Three approaches were identified-involving, engaging and serving, and collaborating.
• Clarity about goals and intended outcomes of family involvement practices is needed.
• Research on the effectiveness of different family involvement approaches is needed.

Although youth mentoring is most commonly understood to be a relationship between an at-risk youth and a non-related adult, programs are increasingly developing practices intended to involve youth's families in the mentoring process. However, due to the tendency to focus largely on the mentoring dyad, these practices are rarely examined leaving us with little sense of what family involvement entails and how it may influence the mentoring process. Six focus groups were conducted with staff members (n = 39) from 24 agency affiliates of Big Brothers Big Sisters of America in order to identify and describe the ways that agencies are involving families in the mentoring process. Three distinct approaches emerged: (a) involving, (b) engaging and serving, and (c) collaborating. These approaches were characterized by both the philosophical approach to families articulated in these groups and the day-to-day practices that appeared to grow out of these values and beliefs.