Abstract
Child outcomes due to a paid professional mentoring program, Friends of the Children (FOTC), were investigated across the first 5 years of an ongoing multi-site randomized controlled trial. Participants were 278 children attending kindergarten or first grade who were identified as “at risk” for adjustment problems during adolescence. The program was delivered through established nonprofit community-based organizations. Mentors were hired to work full time and were provided training, supervision, and support to work individually with small numbers of children. Recruitment took place across a 3-year period. Random assignment to the intervention condition or a services as usual control condition was conducted at the level of the individual, blocking on school and child sex. After the initial assessment, follow-up assessments were conducted every 6 months. Differences in growth curves across the elementary school years were examined in intent-to-treat analyses. Significant effects favoring FOTC were found in terms of caregiver ratings of positive school behavior and less trouble in school, with a trend for higher child behavioral and emotional strengths. Effect sizes were in the range typical in recent trials of youth mentoring.
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Acknowledgements
We are grateful to the children, families, mentors, teachers, and principals who have participated in The Child Study; to the over 60 staff members who served on the study research team across multiple institutions; and to the over 150 staff members who served on the study intervention team across five independent Friends of the Children nonprofit chapters: Boston, New York, Portland, Seattle, and National. We appreciate the chapter leaders who played vital roles in launching the study, including, but not limited to, Judy Stavisky, Terri Sorensen, Catherine Milton, Catherine Beckett, Dwayne Wharton, Bob Houck, Imari Paris-Jeffries, Kim McCoy, Kelly McKee, Edgar Masmela, Kareem Wright, Joe Bergen, Carolyn Manke, Holly Huillet, Tom Keller, Eileen Brennan, Orin Bolstad, and Duncan Campbell. We are thankful to the numerous funders who made this work possible, and to the active involvement and interest of program officers from each of those funders—their contributions greatly improved the quality of the work.
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Funding
The research aspects of the study were funded by grants from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (Grant No. 5R01HD54880-5), the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (Grant No. 68500), the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (Grant No. 2013-JU-FX0007), the National Institute of Mental Health (Grant No. P30 MH 46690), the Campbell Foundation, and the Silver Family Foundation. The intervention aspects of the study were funded, on a site by site basis, by grants from local, regional, and national foundations as well as private donors.
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The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.
Ethical Approval
This research was conducted with the approval of the Oregon Social Learning Center Institutional Review Board. All procedures performed in studies involving human subjects were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.
Informed Consent
Informed consent or assent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.
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Eddy, J.M., Martinez, C.R., Grossman, J.B. et al. A Randomized Controlled Trial of a Long-Term Professional Mentoring Program for Children at Risk: Outcomes Across the First 5 Years. Prev Sci 18, 899–910 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11121-017-0795-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11121-017-0795-z