Using Motivational Interviewing in Brief School-Based Mentoring Programs

Introduction. Youth mentoring programs are a type of prevention program that pairs a caring adult with a young person who presumably wants or needs support. The number of youth served by youth mentoring programs grew from 300,000 in 1990 to almost 3 million in 2014 (Bruce & Brigeland, 2014). Over the same period, the United States federal government (including the Departments of Education, Defense, Justice, and Health and Human Services) invested more than $2.5 billion into youth mentoring programs (Cooper, 2005; Fernandes-Alcantara, 2015). In part, legislators justified funding this service with the hopes of improving children’s school outcomes, with more than half of all mentoring programs taking place in public schools during or after school hours. These school-based mentoring (SBM) programs constitute the most funded, most studied, and fastest growing form of mentoring in the United States. Although policy makers and advocates referred to youth mentoring as a “proven strategy” (e.g. Grossman & Garry, 1997), the scientific community struggled to verify these claims (Bernstein, et al., 2009; Grossman, et al., 2012; Herrera, et al., 2011; Karcher, 2008).

However, we recently conducted a series of experimental evaluations of an innovative mentoring model wherein mentors are trained in selected practices grounded in clinical psychological science. In a series of efficacy studies, these programs produced effect sizes on academic and behavioral outcomes that are nearly three times as large as the average meta-analytic effect of youth mentoring. Key components of this “instrumental” form of mentoring are Motivational Interviewing, structured goal setting, differential reinforcement of prosocial behavior, and training in academic enabling skills.

Method and Results. This presentation will review the sequence of studies, including four randomized controlled trials, the results of the studies, modifications between trials that resulted in improved effects, and will present the results from the most recent trial of the modified program. Each of the trails are randomized experiments that include pre- and post-measures of objective school behavior (i.e. absences, disciplinary records, demerits), academic performance, and measures of psychological functioning (e.g. the BASC-III and the Student Life Satisfaction Scale). The sample in the studies to be reported are middle school students who live in South Carolina and Texas, and total over 400 students (i.e. study 1 n=120; study 2 n=134; study 3 n=76; study 4 n=80).

Conclusion. The series of studies, and subsequent program modifications, demonstrate that when practice-informed and evidence-based modifications are made to mentoring programs, the effects of these programs improves.