Mentoring At-Risk Latino Children and Their Parents: Impact on Social Skills and Problem Behaviors

The Family Mentoring Project, which provided approximately one year of mentoring for at-risk 10-year old Latino children and their parents, aimed to provide not only service but empirical evaluation of the program's impact. This University-community partnership offered individual mentoring, a group educational component for children and parents, and group social/recreational activities. A pre- and post-test analysis of 11 non-mentored and 20 mentored youth revealed positive gains on social skills for mentored children as reflected in self-ratings and mothers' ratings on the Social Skills Rating Scale (SSRS). Also based on the SSRS, mothers reported decreases in three problem behaviors for mentored children. In addition, by post-testing, the mentored children and their mothers compared very favorably with the SSRS standardized samples on both skills and problem behaviors. The findings suggest that bicultural competence may be fostered by programs that provide consistent and long-term mentoring, involve the children's families, include group educational components, and bring families and mentors together for social/recreational events.