News & Research
MENTOR Announces a New, Cutting-Edge Resource for Mentoring
The Chronicle of Evidence-Based Mentoring
September 25, 2012: MENTOR: The National Mentoring Partnership announces a new, relevant and meaningful online resource developed by Dr. Jean Rhodes called The Chronicle of Evidence-Based Mentoring. This tool will highlight new findings and ideas about youth mentoring and give practitioners the opportunity to share their local community experiences.
The Chronicle of Evidence-Based Mentoring is hosted on the University of Massachusetts, Boston’s website for the Center for Evidence Based Mentoring. This Center was established earlier this year in partnership with MENTOR and is dedicated to creating the open and efficient exchange of research and ideas for the advancement of youth mentoring practices and policies.
“As programs strive to deliver the best possible training and assistance to their volunteers, research can and should play a more central role. To this end, The Chronicle will be a vitally important new resource,” said MENTOR’s Chief Program Officer Tammy Tai.
“Leaders of Mentoring Partnerships around the country were thrilled with the opportunity to review this site and offer feedback about what would resonate in the field,” said Jen Smith-Slabaugh, chair of MENTOR’s Mentoring Partnership Advisory Council, a peer-selected group representing Mentoring Partnerships across the country. “We were impressed that The Chronicle’s blog, the “Research Corner,” will share synthesized mentoring research on new topics, as well as provide practitioners with opportunities to ask questions and weigh in from their perspectives. The distillation of crucial information for the mentoring industry can make a difference in the lives of the mentees and mentors and in the vibrancy and sustainability of the mentoring programs that supports these pairs.”
Additional features in The Chronicle will summarize findings from related fields and their application; share and comment on relevant ideas from the popular press; expose readers to early-stage research; and introduce readers to the seasoned and new generation of mentoring scholars. Each of these features will have comment sections, enabling open conversations around particular topics and findings.
“The path between research and practice has not always been direct or efficient,” said Rhodes. “Findings get buried in academic journals, and in-depth, back-and-forth conversations around specific new studies and practices are rare. My hope is that the mentoring community will contribute to The Chronicle and help it develop into a vital, collective resource.”
For more information on The Chronicle, go to http://chronicle.umbmentoring.org/.
Dr. Jean Rhodes is the MENTOR Professor of Psychology and the director of the Center for Evidence-Based Mentoring at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. A clinical psychologist, Rhodes has devoted her career to understanding the role of mentoring relationships in the social, educational and career development of youth. She has published three books (including Stand by Me: The Risks and Rewards of Mentoring Today's Youth), four edited volumes and more than 100 chapters and peer-reviewed articles on the topics related to positive youth development, the transition to adulthood, and mentoring. Rhodes is a Fellow in the American Psychological Association and the Society for Research and Community Action, and was a Distinguished Fellow of the William T. Grant Foundation. She serves as chair of MENTOR’s Research and Policy Council, is a member of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Connected Learning and is on the advisory boards of several mentoring and policy organizations.