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Dantzer, Benjamin

University of British Columbia

In Canada, there is a growing mentoring gap affecting thousands of children and youth. My dissertation emerged from this national issue and my interest in helping to close the mentoring gap. In my study, I utilized Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) to partner with a Big Brothers Big Sisters agency to co-design, implement, and examine a Youth-Initiated Mentoring Program (YIM). YIM is an innovative approach to mentoring that invites youth to identify and nominate their own mentors from their own communities. Using a case study design, I collected data from 11 participants, which included mentoring practitioners (n=2), youth (n=4), parents (n=4), and mentors (n=1). Data were collected using field notes, naturalistic observations, walking tours, and interviews. Data were analyzed using in-vivo, descriptive, and pattern coding (Miles et al., 2020). From an organizational perspective, results demonstrated the value of utilizing CBPR to facilitate co-design and capacity-building opportunities with mentoring practitioners, as well as YIM’s ability to help mentoring organizations support youth voice and choice, expedite the matching process for certain youth, and support the development of successful mentoring relationships. For participants who secured a mentor, data collected from naturalistic observations and walking tours helped contribute to a more contextual and naturalistic understanding of the mentor-nomination and mentor-invitation processes, as well as the nature and quality of YIM relationships. For the participants who did not secure a mentor, results surfaced some of the risks and challenges associated with YIM programs, such as the myth of expedited matching, the potential for unstructured and unsupported mentor nominations, and the emotions that youth and parents can experience after not securing mentors. Based on these results, fifteen recommendations for future practice and five recommendations for future research are provided. My study demonstrates the value of utilizing CBPR to investigate YIM, addresses the critical need for a richer and more naturalistic understanding of key YIM processes, and sheds light on significant risks and ethical considerations that have not been surfaced and discussed in the academic literature. As an emerging mentoring model, these results advance our knowledge of YIM and make important contributions to research and practice.

Thesis/Dissertation

eng

Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library

10.14288/1.0447357

Doctor of Philosophy - PhD

Education, Faculty of; Educational and Counselling Psychology, and Special Education (ECPS), Department of

2025-05

Graduate

DSpace