12: Relationship Celebration and Program Exit

Standard of Practice: Programs should facilitate a relationship celebration and program exit process that ends the mentoring experience on a positive note and provides an opportunity for participants to express gratitude, share feedback, and process the experience of being part of the program.

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Practices Supporting this Standard

The program has written policies and procedures for addressing various mentoring relationship closure scenarios, including, but not limited to, closures that are the result of typical program cycles (e.g., end of the school year) and those that result from unexpected circumstances (e.g., mentor or youth move away, instances of inappropriate behavior by a participant, a mentor or child being unreachable).

A program’s policies and procedures around relationship closure should include responses to a wide range of potential scenarios, especially those that may be sudden or negative and risk harming the youth or mentor, as well as steps to ensure the activities noted below are completed.

Regardless of why a mentoring relationship is ending, the program should prepare participants for the closure of their relationship and facilitate a series of closure activities, including, but not limited to:

Programs are encouraged to talk about relationship endings with participants as early as pre-match training so that all participants understand how important it is to celebrate the relationship and have a planned exit from the program. Once it becomes clear that a mentoring relationship is going to be coming to an end, the program should check in with all participants and offer guidance on how to handle the final activities and dissolution of the relationship.

If possible, the participants in a mentoring relationship should be given the opportunity to have a final meeting together. In programs where matches end at a known time (e.g., end of the school year, after a transition point) there may even be several planned activities designed to facilitate a positive end to the experience. If this is not possible, we recommend the debrief practice noted below.

Regardless of how or when the mentoring relationship is ending, all participants should be offered a debrief meeting or “exit interview,” either together or separately, with program staff in which the reasons for the end of their relationship are clarified, participants are given a chance to reflect on the relationship, and all parties can provide feedback on how the program can improve its services. These meetings may also provide an opportunity to discuss being matched with a new mentor or youth in the program.

All participants should sign a form acknowledging that they understand and agree to follow the program’s policies and rules around future contact. In many programs, mentors and youth are encouraged to continue their positive journey together for years to come after they exit the program; in others, it is important that participants truly end the relationship and avoid future contact for liability and other reasons.

The end of a mentoring relationship can be a challenging time for both youth and mentors. Both can have feelings of sadness or self-doubt and youth may need additional supports and services now that the mentoring experience the program provided is coming to an end.

The program has criteria for determining, and a process for assigning, new relationships to youth and mentors who are still eligible after their initial mentoring relationship has ended.

While programs may choose to re-assign youth or mentors to new relationships, they should only do so when participants are deemed a good fit for a new relationship based on established criteria related to how their initial relationship was received, the factors that led to its dissolution, and the potential for doing harm if an additional mentoring experience ends on a bad note. See the discussion section of this Element for more information on this nuanced need to weigh opportunity and risk when rematching participants.

The program holds a celebration event in each program cycle to celebrate the relationships and achievements of program participants.

For mentoring relationships that are continuing on to the next cycle, this is a nice way to honor their efforts; for those that are ending, these events can serve as a capstone to the experience and can easily be integrated into the other program exit practices detailed above.

The program supports youth and caregivers in finding subsequent mentors in the community. Formal mentoring programs can provide a young person with a valuable relationship that they may not have been able to find on their own, but they can also teach them skills and offer support in identifying their next mentors. Programs may consider referrals to other mentoring programs in the community or offer some guidance in identifying adults who could mentor them in their existing networks of support. 

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 can align relationship ending and program exit activities in a number of common mentoring programs and contexts.

GROUP MENTORING MODELS

Group mentoring programs may need to supplement the general practices above by also engaging in the following practices: 

Groups may need several meetings to properly reflect on and celebrate the experiences they have had together. Programs are encouraged to offer suggested discussion starters, games, or ceremonial activities that help youth say goodbye to one another and their mentors.

Because group programs attempt to create cohesive groups that have a sense of togetherness, it can be challenging when one youth or mentor leaves a group that will carry on. Programs should provide activities and conversation starters that help participants say goodbye to a departing group member or welcome a new addition to the group. This can help navigate these changes without losing the momentum and togetherness of the group. These activities also provide an opportunity to reiterate program rules around confidentiality, both for the remaining members and those departing.

While there is no “magic size” for an effective group model, there may be occasions where a group has experienced enough attrition that it no longer makes sense to keep the group together (e.g., a group of five youth losing three members in a short time). In some instances, it may make sense to add youth from other groups to fill those gaps; in others, it might be more logical to dissolve the group and send members to other groups. Programs are encouraged to think proactively about these scenarios and to have policies to guide their decisions if the need arises.

PEER MENTORING MODELS

Peer programs are encouraged to give mentors and their younger mentees additional time to engage in many of the closure practices noted above. Additionally, because peers in a program are likely to see each other outside of program contexts, closure activities should emphasize the rules around confidentiality and stress the importance of adhering to them in social situations after their time in the program has ended.

E-MENTORING MODELS

The virtual context of e-mentoring programs requires some adaptations to the general practices noted above, namely:

Unfortunately, mentors and youth in virtual programs rarely have the opportunity for a meaningful goodbye in-person, which can complicate the process and exacerbate feelings of loss for participants. Thus, e-mentoring programs are encouraged to provide plenty of activity suggestions, tailored to the virtual environment, that can provide opportunities for participants to celebrate their time together and reflect on their experience.

Many programs allow youth and mentors to stay in contact on their own via social media if they desire. However, others may prohibit that contact and will need to make those expectations clear.

The virtual context also makes it challenging for staff to connect directly with participants as their program experience ends. But activities like preparing participants for their final interactions, or their “exit interviews” with program staff, can often be conducted using the same technology (e.g., web-conferencing software) used for mentor-youth communication.

SCHOOL- AND OTHER FORMAL SITE-BASED MODELS

For school and site-based programs, the general relationship closure and celebration practices noted at the beginning of this Element will likely be sufficient. However, the end of school years (or program cycles in other organizations) are often hectic and filled with many competing tasks and priorities. Thus, we recommend that school- and site-based models start the celebration and closure processes early, ideally closing matches before the very end of the year so that these celebrations and reflections are not rushed or skipped altogether.

We also encourage school- or site-based programs to recognize the site-based staff who have supported the work of the mentoring program over the course of the year (e.g., teachers, counselors, administrative staff). These individuals often provide critical support to the functioning of the mentoring program and honoring their contributions during celebration events is also important.

INFORMAL MENTORING MODELS

Given that informal relationships between staff mentors and youth participants start of organically and without formal matching, it makes sense that the ending stages of these relationships will also look differently than in more formalized programs. In many cases, saying goodbye to a staff mentor can be challenging for a young person who is leaving the broader youth development organization — it may feel like an additional loss given the potentially close relationship they may have formed. For organizations that offer informal mentoring, we encourage practices such as:

  • Clarifying with youth and mentors that their mentoring relationship is ending and providing an opportunity to debrief the experience.
  • Teaching youth how to find additional mentors, either with other staff at the site or through other individuals or services in the community.
  • Informing caregivers, as needed, about the shift in the youth’s mentoring engagement.
  • Reminding all participants in the relationships about rules governing confidentiality and ongoing communication or contact, especially if youth are continuing to participate in the broader services offered.
  • Are we prepared for the different ways a mentoring relationship can end? Do we have contingency plans in place for different types of unanticipated closures?
  • How can we ensure that every program participant gets a meaningful and complete closure experience? How can we avoid having participants who linger in limbo or who just stop participating without an opportunity for reflection and closure?
  • How common is it for a relationship to get a proper goodbye in our program? What can our staff do better to facilitate closure activities? Have we adequately staffed this set of tasks?
  • What are the main reasons our matches close prematurely? Do we capture this information or look for trends or patterns in the data? Who tends to experience early relationship endings, and do we understand why? Are there steps we can take to improve mentoring experiences for those youth?
  • When would we consider matching a youth or mentor into a new mentoring relationship after their first one ends? What are the criteria that would lead us to conclude that we shouldn’t rematch a participant into a new relationship?
  • What would our mentors, youth, and caregivers like to celebrate about their mentoring work? What themes or accomplishments would they want to make sure are honored and celebrated?
  • How can we help youth reflect on the meaning of their mentoring relationship as it comes to a close? What types of conversations should we be having with them? How do we want them to feel as this experience winds down?
  • Youth and mentors can help plan closure ceremonies and other celebration moments at the end of program cycles.
  • Youth, caregivers, and mentors can all contribute ideas to how the program handles different relationship closure scenarios and the types of questions that get asked during exit interviews or other feedback points.
  • Program stakeholders from the broader community (e.g., program funders, families of mentors, teachers and coaches, etc.) can be involved in the planning of celebration events and should be invited to attend so that they can see the impact of the program and celebrate the positive growth of participants. However, it is important that youth, caregivers, and mentors feel an authentic ownership of celebration events and ceremonies and do not feel tokenized by their participation.

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

  • Percentage of mentors and youth successfully completing closure activities or processes.
  • Percentage of mentors or youth who agree to continue their relationships for another program cycle.
  • Percentage of mentors who sign up to mentor a new youth after their current relationship ends.
  • Percentage or total number of youth, caregivers, or mentors taking part in a final program celebration event or ceremony.

Finding Mentors, Finding Success. YouthBuild U.S.A., National Mentoring Resource Center. This guide can be used to support youth with finding their next mentor and incorporated into closure practices. 

Match Closure–Fostering Progress. Silver Lining Mentoring,
This webinar explores match closure as a critical consideration when mentoring programs serve youth involved in the child welfare system.

“They Always Come, and Never Say Goodbye”: Healthy Closure in Mentoring. National Mentoring Resource Center.
This webinar provides an overview of research on closure, types of relationship endings, when and how to facilitate closure, and approaches to closure across programs and settings.

Tools to Strengthen Match Support and Closure. National Mentoring Resource Center.
Includes tools developed by Big Brothers Big Sisters of Massachusetts Bay to support closure practices.