Researching the Referral Stage of Youth Mentoring in Six Juvenile Justice Settings: An Exploratory Analysis

The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention of the Department of Justice commissioned a study to examine the referral stage of the mentoring process across six juvenile justice system settings. The research questions focused on best practices in identifying and referring youth to mentoring programs, the capacity of the mentoring community to support these youth, and the intermediate outcomes of mentoring in various juvenile justice settings. Key findings indicate that intake and assessment of youth should precede referral, there is a shortage of qualified mentors, more youth were referred than were ultimately matched with a mentor, and programs embedded in juvenile justice systems were able to more readily facilitate matching.