02: Strong Program Design

Standard of Practice: All mentoring programs should design their services based on careful consideration of youth strengths needs, available resources, and a theory of change that describes how the program’s mentoring experiences can help youth achieve meaningful progress on relevant outcomes. This program design should be codified through written documents that include a mission statement, a vision statement, a logic model and theory of change, and a policy and procedures manual.

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Practices Supporting this Standard

The program has written mission and vision statements that detail the purpose of the program and its vision for participating young people and, as relevant, the broader community.  

A vision statement offers an aspirational view of the type of world/community the program hopes to contribute to, while the mission statement articulates how the program will do that. Both should reflect the program’s values as identified in Element 1.

The program has a logic model that broadly illustrates how program resources, activities, and inputs lead to key outputs that are connected to meaningful short-, medium-, and long-term outcomes for participating youth and, as relevant, the community.

The logic model should be made available to funders, program participants, and other stakeholders who can benefit from seeing how the program is structured and the many factors that go into program operations and supporting mentees. See the Discussion for more information.

The program has a theory of change that describes in detail how a youth’s program experiences are designed to lead them toward the outcomes prioritized by the program.

Although a logic model and theory of change share many similarities (for example, both are often rendered as one-page graphics), a theory of change is more tightly focused on the journey a young person is expected to go on while they are being mentored in the program. Specifically, it describes how the activities a mentor and youth engage in are designed to lead the young person toward meaningful achievements or goals. See the Discussion section for more details.

The program has a written policy and procedures manual that clearly articulates program rules and official policies, as well as the procedures that implement those policies in day-to-day operations.

Common content for this manual includes policies related to program staff (e.g., hiring practices, staff roles, professional development), volunteer management (e.g., mentor eligibility, screening protocols, training delivery, match support), youth and caregiver engagement (e.g., initial recruitment, matching practices, match closure and celebration practices), and other important program tasks, including match monitoring, data collection, and fundraising activities.

The program reviews and updates program design materials on a regular basis to ensure that continuous improvement is possible.

Mentoring programs are, ideally, constantly evolving as the needs of youth change over time and as key resources such as funding or staffing come and go. Programs are encouraged to review their policies and procedures on an annual basis, at a minimum, to update their operations with fresh thinking and improved processes.

Because there is tremendous diversity in how and where mentoring is delivered to young people, here we offer additional practices and recommendations related to this Element for some common mentoring contexts. Readers should note that there may be overlap in the following categories (e.g., a peer mentoring program in a school or a Boys & Girls Club offering a group mentoring program on-site) and read all that may be relevant to their work. The next recommendations may help design more effective services in certain models or spaces and should influence the theory of change as to how mentoring “works.”

GROUP MENTORING MODELS

There are many important considerations when designing group mentoring programs. We recommend considering the following design elements:

Group mentoring programs are typically structured with either one mentor matched with a small group of youth (3–6) or several co-mentors working with a slightly larger group (8–12). The co-mentoring approach offers several advantages, including fewer canceled meetings when one mentor is unavailable, improved ability to manage the groups, and empowering co-mentors to offer distinct forms of support and work together to mutually reinforce key messages or learnings for mentees. Both approaches can offer strong adult support to the group and enable youth to get to know one another, take on leadership roles, and truly collaborate and bond with one another in the program’s activities. While an ideal mentor-youth ratio has not been clearly identified in research and likely depends heavily on the goals and activities of the program, there is an emerging sense among researchers and practitioners that a ratio of about four to five mentees for every adult mentor in the group is a “sweet spot” as it allows for both adequate mentor supervision and facilitation and youth ownership and leadership of the group’s activities (Kupersmidt, et al., 2020b). Large groups (e.g., over 12 youth) can experience challenges regardless of how many mentors are there to support the work. For example, larger groups allow some youth to become disengaged, for cliques and subgroups to form, and for a variety of other issues to creep into the overall cohesion of the group (Kuperminc, 2022). Programs will need to consider these factors carefully.

Programs will also need to consider when a group may need to be merged into another group if its membership drops below a minimum threshold due to attrition or other factors. See Element 12 for more guidance on managing changes in group size or composition.

Group mentoring programs should be built around a robust curriculum of lessons and/or activities that guide the content and structure of group interactions. However, programs should also recognize that groups may move at their own pace or decide to focus on other meaningful activities or conversations in light of new needs or circumstances youth are facing, thus there is a need for some flexibility in how curricular lessons or activities are implemented. The types of activities offered will vary depending on program goals, but in general, group activities should:

  • Emphasize active involvement and interaction for all group participants.
  • Build on prior activities or further elaborate a theme related to program goals.
  • Offer opportunities for honest reflection and open, safe sharing.
  • Emphasize role plays or other scenario-based opportunities to practice new skills or behaviors.
  • Facilitate knowledge acquisition and skill-building.

Because group mentoring programs are very activity-driven and tend to be housed at a site like a school, recreation center, or other organization they must be clear about their physical space and resource needs with site leadership and coordinate with others who may also need to access these assets. If the program is housed in a “host” site like a school, a Memorandum of Understanding or other binding document can help clarify agreements around access to space and resources.

Given that creating a sense of group ownership and community is a key component of strong group mentoring programs, practitioners are encouraged to think about how they can encourage groups to develop their own customs, rituals, and group rules. This can include a common greeting or opening icebreaker to each meeting, a set of rules around confidentiality and handling conflict, or even rituals on how they celebrate accomplishments by group members or welcome new members to the group.

Both research and practice highlight these two characteristics — mentees feeling a sense of belonging combined with a sense that the group is a safe place for them — as being at the heart of effective group mentoring programs (see Kupersmidt et al., 2020b). Consider how these conditions can be achieved through specific activities, rituals, and agreements, as well as establishing understanding with group participants of what they should do if they do not feel safe or included in the group.

A key strength of group mentoring approaches is their ability to benefit youth both through mentor-youth interactions and the peer-to-peer interactions and relationships they foster. When developing a group mentoring theory of change, be sure to incorporate both sets of pathways when outlining how youth outcomes are fostered through the program.

Group programs are encouraged to review MENTOR’s 2020 group mentoring supplement to the fourth edition of the EEPM (Kupersmidt et al., 2020b) for deeper discussion of these design elements.

PEER MENTORING MODELS

Peer mentoring programs, particularly cross-age peer programs in which older peers mentor youth who are several years younger, have several special considerations in how they design and deliver their services. We recommend these programs pay particular attention to the following principles:

Almost all peer mentoring programs use some kind of planned curriculum or suggested set of activities that are intended to produce specific outcomes in both mentees and mentors, such as knowledge about a topic, skill-building, or reflection. But these activities are too often used to define the entire experience, de-emphasizing the establishment of meaningful relationships between the younger mentees and their older peer mentors. The role of peer mentors should not be simply delivering curriculum content or leading prescribed activities. Their most important job should be to form a mutually rewarding friendship with another student or group of students. Strategies to assist matches in achieving this goal include:

  • Engaging them in activities that are simply about the building of their relationship and nothing else.
  • Ensuring they have time throughout the program cycle dedicated to getting to know each other and sharing important events in their lives.
  • Encouraging them to name and reflect on the qualities of their relationship.

Because peer mentors are also youth themselves, cross-age peer mentoring programs should structure their services to provide mentors with ample opportunities to develop and grow. These programs are excellent contexts for building leadership skills and helping older youth “come out of their shell” — fostering their confidence through meaningful contribution, enhancing their self-esteem, building communication skills, and supporting their positive identity development. A program’s theory of change and logic model should articulate clear and measurable outcomes for both the mentees and their peer mentors, explaining how serving in this role can support mentors’ development.

There are several challenges to note, particularly in school contexts. These include:

  • Mentors having scheduling conflicts (e.g., inability to attend consistently given the timing of after-school programs) or being overly busy with extracurricular activities.
  • Challenges accessing adequate physical space or resources for program activities.Transportation challenges in models where mentors travel to a different school or site for program activities.
  • Mentors focusing more on interactions with their fellow mentors than with their mentees. This is a natural tendency in youth that programs will need to curb through observation and redirection.

We often associate the mentor role with adult skills and wisdom, but mentors in these programs are still young people themselves. Thus, they will need more instruction on clarifying the mentor role, understanding how to work with the adults running the program, their role in leading activities with their mentee, and how to build communication skills, like giving positive feedback, active listening, and nonverbal communication. Role-playing and other training activities that allow peer mentors to practice handling specific scenarios may be particularly impactful in training peer mentors. They also need, and can benefit from, increased levels of program support and adult supervision relative to that required for adult mentors. Because peer mentors may not know how to handle a variety of challenges or may make mistakes in how they interact with their mentees, it is important that at least one staff member can observe all matches and offer support and corrective instruction as needed.


Peer programs are encouraged to review MENTOR’s 2020 cross-age peer mentoring supplement to the fourth edition of the EEPM for deeper discussion of these design elements (Kupersmidt et al., 2020a).

E-MENTORING MODELS

There are several considerations that e-mentoring programs should emphasize in their program design:

Some programs develop sophisticated software platforms with embedded activities, multiple modalities for communication, and robust staff oversight and monitoring. Others simply get by with Zoom meetings, emails, phone calls, or “bulletin board” style platforms. Regardless of the technology selected, programs should ensure that it is safe, accessible to participants, a tool they feel comfortable using, and appropriate for the types of interactions that will lead to positive program outcomes.

There are also accessibility considerations when selecting program software or hardware. Programs are encouraged to think carefully about accommodations and alternative communication methods for participants with disabilities. E-mentoring programs often exclude youth or mentors in unintended ways when they make assumptions about technology access and ignore the practical realities of those with disabilities.

This includes both training on technology use (and the tech support that will be needed) and training designed to build the digital communication skills of mentors and youth. Programs should assume wide variance in the technology skills and online communication abilities of mentors and youth. Logging challenges mentors and youth report as they progress through the program can help refine training topics for future cohorts.

Mentors and youth will need more recommendations on things to do together than they would in an in-person program because they will lack the ability to explore their community together and find meaningful activities out in the “real world.” Programs should not assume that e-mentoring programs require less daily maintenance and match support. In fact, these models likely require more support from staff, as the lack of in-person interaction can lead to gaps in communication and misunderstandings that can feel hurtful to both youth and mentors.  

E-mentoring programs are encouraged to review MENTOR’s 2019 e-mentoring supplement to the fourth edition of the EEPM (Garringer et al., 2019) for deeper discussion of these design elements.

SCHOOL- AND OTHER FORMAL SITE-BASED MODELS

School- and site-based models will benefit from adhering to both the general practices in this Element and many of those discussed above for group and peer models, which are often set at schools or within youth serving organizations. Broadly speaking, school- and site-based programs need to build theories of change that articulate how the mentoring services complement or supplement the overall goals of the organization or institution and how mentoring aligns with other services and supports that youth may be participating in.

Those designing mentoring programs for schools or other site-based locations are encouraged to:

One of the most common challenges faced by site-based mentoring programs, particularly school-based programs, is the need for consistent engagement of site leaders or school liaisons. These programs need champions—adults in the school (or other) system who can secure buy-in from decision-makers and generate access to facilities and resources that enable the program to thrive. The need for strong site engagement with the program also trickles down to the school counselors and teachers (or other frontline staff in nonschool contexts) who are often directly responsible for implementing the program. These staffs need flexibility in their schedules and adequate time to prepare, help facilitate, and observe program activities.

Ensure that the program understands school or site policies and create program policies with them in mind. For example, work with the site to understand when and how mentors will be informed of mentee absences (e.g., school absences, testing, field trips), whether and to what extent mentors can communicate with school staff and teachers, and what spaces and resources mentors can and can’t have access to.

In school- and site-based mentoring, there will be inevitable challenges to ensuring perfect attendance. Planning around program design should take careful consideration of the realistic schedules of participants and how that may influence their mentoring experience and eventual outcomes. For example, mentoring delivered as part of an after-school program may face challenges in delivering a consistent program experience if youth are not attending every day of the week or are being picked up by caregivers at different times.

Because space is at a premium in most schools and other site-based program locations, the mentoring staff will need to work with others to ensure that matches can meet in areas that are conducive to achieving program goals. Mentors and youth may need some level of privacy for meaningful conversations, and they may need access to resources such as the library, art studios, or recreation equipment to engage in some mentoring activities. Ideally, the site environment will not be a distraction or barrier when mentors and youth are together.

When developing a theory of change, consider ways that the site itself could contribute to, or hinder, outcomes. For example, simply by meeting with a mentor in the school context, youth may be seen in a more positive light by their peers (Cavell & Henrie, 2010). The mutual reinforcement of their changed peer dynamics may contribute to mentee outcomes as much as the work of the mentor. Programs should also consider how the timing of the mentoring meetings could influence outcomes and build this into the theory of change — for example, pulling academically vulnerable youth out of class for mentoring may not be as beneficial as serving these youth after school or during lunch, when they are not missing valuable instruction time (Schwartz et al., 2012).

INFORMAL MENTORING MODELS

Youth development organizations offering informal mentoring through existing staff should clearly articulate how the mentoring support will complement or supplement the overall goals of the organization and the delivery of other services and supports youth may be participating in. Mentoring should be integrated into the overall theory of change for the organization and its contribution to broader outcomes should be clearly articulated.

  • What are the primary goals we have for the youth in our program? Who developed those goals? Did we solicit the input of youth, caregivers, and the broader community when developing these goals and program outcomes?
  • How have our values and principles (Element 1) informed our program goals and youth outcomes?
  • How do we label youth “needs” in our theory of change? Is our language affirming and strengths-based? Are we inadvertently devaluing or excluding certain groups of youth?
  • How does the mentoring experience we provide change young people and their attitudes and behaviors? Do our services change others beyond the youth in positive ways? Do our services, over time, have the potential to even change the community or site (e.g., school) our program serves?
  • Are our program goals realistic? Do they seem like the types of outcomes a mentoring relationship could reasonably foster for most of our young people? What else might determine how impactful our mentoring is?  
  • What do our mentors and young people do when they are together? Why do they do these things? What evidence do we have that those activities will lead to our desired outcomes?
  • How are we ensuring that our program activities are inclusive of the diversity of our community?
  • How can we measure whether our activities are putting young people on the path toward the goals highlighted in our theory of change? How would we know they are moving along that pathway?
  • Where does the institutional knowledge of our program live? Have we written down our policies, rules, and step-by-step processes for getting our work done?
  • Ask a diverse cross-section of youth, caregivers, and members of the community to share their thoughts about what outcomes or benefits they would hope for from their mentoring experience. Asking mentors to share the benefits they themselves hope to gain (or already have gained) from their participation can also be valuable.
  • Have young people design your logic model and theory of change graphics. They can use both their artistic talents and perspectives on, and experiences in, mentoring to help these visualizations come to life.
  • Ask youth to periodically review your policies and procedures and recommend improvements in language or implementation. This should be done on a regular basis and programs should consider special committees to provide focused review and input (e.g., an LGBTQIA2S+ ally group reviewing the inclusiveness of program policies, or a disability committee looking specifically at areas of improvement related to inclusive practice for participants with disabilities).
  • Ask youth, caregivers, and mentors to craft your program’s mission statement. Allow them to sum up the work of the program and the vision you collectively have for young people.

Programs may want to set benchmarks and track progress around metrics such as:

  • Completion of an annual review of policies and procedures.
  • Number of policies or procedures updated annually or in response to scaled program growth (i.e., regional or state expansion).
  • Number of downloads or other dissemination of the program’s design materials (e.g., logic model, theory of change, mission/vision statement.
  • Number of policies or procedures updated based on feedback from program participants.

9 Characteristics of a Mission Statement. BoardSource.
This 1-page infographic provides recommendations for developing a compelling mission statement.

The Community Builder’s Approach to Theory of Change: A Practical Guide to Theory Development. Anderson, A., Aspen Institute.
This guide provides a basic overview of the major concepts that define theories of change along with guidance and a resource toolbox to support development of theories of change.

Developing a Theory of Change and Logic Model. MENTOR Canada and the Ontario Mentoring Coalition.
A 2-page introductory guide to developing a theory of change and logic model at a glance.

Developmental Relationships: Relationships to Help Young People Thrive. Search Institute.
This Search Institute resource describes how all adults can step up to help groups of young people grow in developmentally appropriate ways. This information can be used to develop or enhance mentoring services and theories of change.

Example Logic Models and Theories of Change for Youth Mentoring Programs. National Mentoring Resource Center.
This set of resources provides sample theories of change and logic models for a variety of different youth mentoring program models.

Generic Mentoring Program Policy and Procedure Manual. Ballasy, L., Fullop, M., and Garringer, M., Education Northwest
This resource provides a template for programs to create a customized manual to guide policies and day-to-day services.

Introduction from Becoming a Better Mentor: Strategies to Be There for Young People. Garringer, M., and Herrera, C., MENTOR.
This chapter provides an overview of basic principles and concepts of quality mentoring and can help inform designing services. 

Logic Model Development Guide. W.K. Kellogg Foundation.
A resource for designing and using a strong program logic model.

Measurement Guidance Toolkit. National Mentoring Resource Center.
This resource provides recommended instruments for measuring key youth outcomes and risk and protective factors that may be relevant to program outcomes.

Starting a Mentoring Program. MENTOR. A self-paced tutorial on how to conceptualize and develop a mentoring program.