Caregiver-Initiated Mentoring: Developing a Working Model to Mitigate Social Isolation

In this study, we explored the potential for developing an approach that fosters parents ’ capacity to be gatekeepers to their children’s adult support networks. We used a daylong collaborative workshop to partner with six parents from a low-income housing service and five youth-serving professionals from the community. Participants generated potential strategies by which parents ca n cultivate informal mentoring relationships and identified specific ideas for helping parents (a) see the value of actively seeking informal mentors, (b) recognize and manage potential risks, and (c) identify and make requests of potential informal mentors. Findings from our workshop were used to d evelop a Caregiver-Initiated Mentoring approach that could be utilized by clinical social workers and other helping professionals. The approach integrates our findings with empirical research from youth mentoring and conceptual underpinnings from parent help-seeking models, the Transtheoretical Mode l of Change, and Motivational Interviewing.

Source: Clinical Social Work Journal - October 14, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research