mentors with a background in a helping profession (e.g., teacher). The frequency of

contact with the mentor and the duration of the relationship were not moderators of effect

size. However, very few evaluations measured these variables. The type of outcome

variable did not moderate effect size, but the risk status of the youth did. Those youth

from economically disadvantaged backgrounds or that had other environmental risk

factors had more improvements than those that did not (DuBois, Holloway, et al., 2002).

 Program evaluation research is often difficult to conduct with scientific rigor.

However, experimental designs and meta-analyses assist in truly evaluating which

interventions are effective for promoting healthy adolescent development. This review

details the existing research evaluating the effectiveness of mentoring programs. This

research provides evidence for the effectiveness of mentoring programs to have an

influence on several domains of functioning for children and adolescents. The following

section describes the literature related to natural mentors in the lives of adolescents.

Natural Mentors

 The study of natural mentors is a relatively new area of research and there are

fewer studies than in the program evaluation literature. Interventionists are eager to

supply mentors without the assessment of existing supports in the natural environment.

The following literature addresses the existence of natural mentors in the lives of

adolescents at risk for emotional behavioral problems, as well as in more normative

samples of adolescents.

 Early research on natural mentors by Rhodes and colleagues focused on African

American and Latino adolescent mothers (Rhodes et al., 1992, 1994). Only 35% of the

Latino female adolescent mothers had natural mentors (Rhodes et al, 1994). However, of

those that did, 95% had access to their mentors as often as weekly. The mentors tended to