WORKSHOP LED BY JEAN RHODES AND JUSTIN PRESTON
Jean Rhodes is the Frank L. Boyden Professor of Psychology and the Director of the Center for Evidence-Based Mentoring at the University of Massachusetts Boston. She has devoted her career to understanding and advancing the role of intergenerational relationships in the intellectual, social, educational, and career development of youth.

She has published three books, four edited volumes, and over 100 chapters and peer-reviewed articles on topics related to positive youth development, the transition to adulthood, and mentoring. Dr. 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 has been awarded many campus-wide teaching awards for her advances in pedagogy and scholarship, including the Vice Chancellor’s Teaching Scholar Award, the Student Government Outstanding Teacher Award, and the Chancellor’s Outstanding Scholar award at UMB.

Justin Preston is a graduate student at UMass Boston’s Clinical Psychology Doctoral Program. Hailing from Ada, Ohio, he completed his undergraduate studies at Connecticut College with a degree in Psychology. Later, he received his Master’s in Human Development and Social Intervention from New York University’s Steinhardt School in New York City. Justin’s research interests travel along  interrelated tracks: the long-term impacts of mass trauma and cumulative stress on mental health, the ways that social support and interpersonal relationships can be used to transition from relief to recovery, and the use of mentoring as a context for fostering social inclusion in community settings domestically and internationally. His clinical interests include working with youth and adults who have experienced trauma and other adverse experiences.

ABSTRACT
Workshop Topic: Research on and Evaluation of Mentoring Practices

Workshop Objectives/Questions Answered
How can traditional mentoring be improved on a general level in the coming years with new research findings? By the conclusion of the workshop, attendees will:

1. Understand the latest research and its implications across multiple ecological levels, from the level of the individual to the broader macro systems that influence their mentoring programs.
2. Have a strong grasp of the latest research developments in the field, as well as an understanding of where the field of mentoring will be headed in the future, providing them an opportunity to position their programs to succeed in a changing field.
3. Receive exposure to mentoring in a broad variety of contexts, enabling participants to instill ideas from beyond their specific focus to improve their programs and mentoring relationships.

Workshop Practicality (format: PowerPoint presentations by researchers)
Participants will be presented with a new model of conceptualizing mentoring programs, enabling them to rethink and expand the services provided by their organization by using mentoring as a context for intervention and reinforcement, rather than mentoring serving as the intervention.

1. By the conclusion of the workshop, participants will have an understand of a novel conceptualization of mentoring, the impacts of disadvantage on mentoring relationships, and other findings that will enable the participants to augment their programs in the present and while aligning their mentees for success in the future.

Workshop Description
Session Outline:

1. Introduction and Overview – 5 minutes –
2. Large-scale research findings – 35 minutes –
   • Findings from the most recent meta-analyses
   • The impacts of economic disadvantage on mentoring during the transition to adulthood
3. Investigating the role and function of after school a meta-analysis of positive outcomes for at-risk youth – 10 minutes –
4. Toward a new model of mentoring – 20 –
5. Question and Answer – 10 minutes

Workshop Goal: Balanced at the intersection of research and action, the panel will present the latest findings from research being conducted at the Center for Evidence-Based Mentoring. Participants will learn more about findings from nationally-representative samples to in-depth, qualitative interviews with mentors operating in
understudied contexts. Practical implications for programs and researchers will be included, providing the participants with new strategies and knowledge with which to help guide their work in the mentoring field.