Optimizing the Capacity of Community-Based Paraprofessional Service Providers Working with Youth and Families in Poverty

Introduction: Paraprofessional service providers working in communities of poverty are uniquely positioned to provide prevention-focused support to youth and families. Many providers, such as mentors, are tasked primarily with supporting youth, yet they interact regularly with other people in mentees' lives in homes, schools, and other community settings. Leveraging opportunities to provide effective support to parents is critical given the key role that parents play in youth’s lives, and lack of accessible parenting programs for families in high poverty communities. However, there are few guidelines for paraprofessionals such as youth mentors to engage with families; therefore, there is a need to learn more about mentors’ attitudes about their role, and identify opportunities to equip them to provide evidence-based parenting supports.

Methods: Two qualitative studies (1 and 2) examined paid youth mentors’ (N=9) perspectives, specifically how fulfillment of the role in a salaried capacity, and perceptions of youth and families with whom they worked, informed role conceptualizations. Study 3, a longitudinal open trial, examined patterns of parent (N ≈ 600) participation in prevention/early intervention services that embedded paraprofessionals within schools to offer parenting supports through multiple formal and informal modalities.

Results: In Study 1, mentors described a sense of expertise, effectiveness working across settings, and high organizational support. In Study 2, mentors’ responses revealed a common assumption that youth problems were byproducts of adverse environments. Mentors described putting significant time and effort into working closely with other key individuals in their mentees’ lives because they identified environmental need; however, these extra-dyadic facets of their roles were not clearly defined for them nor supported by agency priorities. Preliminary results from Study 3 indicate high rates of parental participation in services, with low rates of participation in formal parenting groups or home visits, and high rates of informal contacts.

 Conclusions: Studies 1 and 2 suggest that community-based paraprofessional-led mentoring may hold promise for serving vulnerable families, but mentors require support around role elements that extend beyond mentor–mentee relationships. Study 3 indicates that it is feasible for parents in low-income communities to participate in paraprofessional-led services through informal opportunities to connect one-on-one with paraprofessional service providers. Integrating evidence-based parenting supports into paraprofessional-led community-based youth mentoring models may therefore represent a valuable and feasible opportunity to promote positive parenting and provide needed social support.