03: Recruitment of Youth Participants

Standard of Practice: Program recruits an appropriate number of eligible youth by implementing a formal recruitment plan.

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Practices Supporting this Standard

The program has a written recruitment plan with multiple strategies for recruiting mentees.

This plan should include:

  • Information about eligibility criteria for youth and families to help ensure the program reaches the youth who can benefit most from program services.
  • Where those individuals might be most easily reached.
  • A target goal for the number of youth recruited to ensure the program does not exceed its capacity.
  • Messaging designed to get a diverse and representative array of prospective mentees (and their caregivers, when appropriate) interested in the program.
  • Multiple recruitment strategies and activities, including a blend of in-person, online, and media-based methods that will reach youth and their families.
  • Procedural information about who conducts recruitment activities, when and where those activities occur, and how progress will be tracked.

The program uses recruitment messages that realistically portray program expectations, benefits to youth (and caregivers when appropriate), and the supports youth and mentors will receive throughout program participation.

Recruitment efforts can help set reasonable expectations for youth and families about the experience by accurately describing what to expect from the mentoring relationship and the program, clarifying the types of benefits youth may experience, and highlighting how mentors will be screened and supported in their role.

The program has publicly available eligibility criteria and participation requirements for youth.

Programs are encouraged to develop guidelines that detail the youth’s role in the relationship, eligibility criteria, expectations around participation, and important program rules so that prospective mentees and caregivers can gauge their fit for the program. Making these criteria available to partner organizations can help ensure that they refer youth who could benefit the most from the services.

Recruitment messages take a strengths-based approach, represent the full diversity of the community being served, and ensure that eligible individuals from all walks of life feel welcomed and accepted in the program.

Recruitment materials, both in print and online, should be fully representative of the community served and portray youth and families in positive ways that honor their strengths and goals. Materials should be offered in the primary languages of youth and caregivers being recruited, and programs should have staff who can converse with youth and families in their primary language.

As needed, the program encourages mentees and/or caregivers to assist in recruiting other youth and families whose needs match the services being offered by the program. Programs may also want to enlist the support of program alumni to support recruitment efforts — a youth/alumni advisory committee can be helpful in ensuring that recruitment messages and activities are on point.

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 certain programs reach youth and their families more effectively.

GROUP MENTORING MODELS

Group programs should consider these additional strategies and communication points when recruiting youth to participate in the program:

  • Recruitment messaging and materials should clearly highlight the benefits of participating in a group experience and how the group format can lead to the positive outcomes the program is striving for.
  • Youth (and caregivers where relevant) may have questions about how the group functions (e.g., how groups are formed) and safety concerns (e.g., how other youth are determined to be safe and appropriate for the program). Recruitment messaging and materials should anticipate these questions and provide information that can increase comfort with the group format for prospective participants.

PEER MENTORING MODELS

Peer mentoring programs will generally want to follow the practices recommended above. In addition, youth (and caregivers where relevant) may have questions or concerns about how the mentors will be determined to be safe and appropriate for working with someone younger and why a peer approach is a good fit for the youth’s needs and overall program goals. Recruitment messages should anticipate such questions and provide information that builds interest in a peer-to-peer mentoring experience.

E-MENTORING MODELS

E-mentoring programs have several additional considerations that may influence the recruitment of youth participants:

  • Youth may have questions about the technology used for communication in the program that can be clarified in recruitment messages. For example, programs can provide information about exactly how mentors and youth communicate and the technology support provided by the program. If specific software or hardware is required for participation, details should be provided during recruitment so that prospective participants can determine if the experience will be a good fit.
  • Youth (and caregivers where relevant) may also have concerns about online safety and program risk management practices, making it particularly important to address such concerns proactively in recruitment messages.
  • Recruitment messages and materials should also convey the benefits of an e-mentoring relationship, specifically. The use of technology can have many advantages and recruitment messages should highlight these benefits and why a virtual mentoring experience might be a good fit for a young person. 

SCHOOL- AND OTHER FORMAL SITE-BASED MODELS

School- and site-based programs should consider leveraging the site’s existing connections with youth and families. For youth already participating in the broader services of the organization, mentoring can be presented as a new option for all or offered to those who have expressed or demonstrated a need for extra support. Parents and caregivers may need to be approached differently, as they may only be at the school or site for brief pickups and drop-offs. Site-based programs can also incorporate recruitment messages to communication materials the site is already using, such as a newsletter or general website. For external partners who are bringing a program into an existing setting, it can also be helpful to obtain a letter of support from the host site that can be shared with youth and families to highlight the partnership and explain why mentoring is being added. School- and site-based programs should also address the following additional considerations:

  • Providing information about how the mentoring program activities fit in with the rest of the school schedule or the other activities happening at the site.
  • Explaining how the work of the program supports or complements the overall goals of the school or organization.
  • Providing additional information about how mentors are determined to be safe and appropriate before working at the school or site.
  • If youth are referred to the program by teachers, counselors, or other site staff, those individuals should be provided with information that can help them make appropriate referrals of eligible youth.
  • Potential participants may also need information about why they are being approached about the mentoring opportunity, reiterating that this is being offered to bolster the young person’s experience and not for remedial or punitive reasons. As with the program vision, such language should be presented from a strengths-based perspective.

INFORMAL MENTORING MODELS

As noted above for site-based models, youth development organizations that are offering informal mentoring via staff will need to consider how the opportunity for optional mentoring will be presented to youth participants and their caregivers. Caregivers, in particular, may wonder why their child is being approached for additional support or a different type of relationship with staff. If staff are serving as mentors in addition to other roles, youth and caregivers may need information on how the program prepares them for this additional responsibility and how it ensures safety and a positive relationship experience.

  • Who can we best serve with our program model? Are our services designed for broad or more focused groups of young people?
  • Where in our community can we reach the types of prospective mentees we are looking for? Are there places (including online) where we can find them most easily? Are there partnerships we could create with community organizations that could strengthen our recruitment efforts?
  • What are the right messages to entice prospective mentees and their caregivers? How do we describe the goals of the program and the experience of the mentoring relationship? How do we talk about our program, our mentors, and the ways we support them?
  • Do we describe our program using a strengths-based, multifaceted view of the young people and families we work with?
  • Are recruitment materials inclusive of the full community we serve? Do our materials show diverse representation? Who might be missing? How do we talk about inclusivity in our recruitment messaging?
  • What languages do our materials need to be translated into?
  • How are we gathering the perspectives of youth and their families in our framing of recruitment materials and in how we are reaching out to community members?
  • Create opportunities for youth participants to share their thoughts about the types of framing and messages they think would appeal to their peers and make them more likely to join the program. You can even ask them to design and implement a campaign to recruit other young people — this can build their leadership skills and help you tap into social groups and settings where adults have less influence. 
  • Similarly, ask caregivers to review or craft recruitment messages that would appeal to other parents, guardians, or other caring adults in the lives of youth. They can help identify barriers to involvement your staff might overlook. In fact, asking currently participating caregivers to actively participate in the recruitment of other families might help bridge cultural or class gaps and present the program in a different light than if it were only your staff offering this mentoring experience.
  • Ask youth to review your current youth recruitment materials to make sure they are comfortable with how they are portrayed and how the mentoring experience is described.

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

  • Total number of potential mentees reached with specific recruitment messages or presentations.
  • Total number of applicants in a given time period.
  • Total number of youth waitlisted (i.e., not being able to be immediately served) in a given time period, if relevant.
  • Total number of youth referred from each referral source.
  • The percentage of applicants who meet eligibility criteria.
  • The sources that led to each participant’s application (where they learned about the experience).
  • The percentage of all recruited youth who end up getting matched with a mentor (or group).

Finding Mentors, Finding Success. YouthBuild U.S.A., National Mentoring Resource Center.
This guide can be used to help prospective mentees understand and define their role in a mentoring relationship and will be especially helpful for youth initiating mentoring relationships in their community. 

Preparing For Your Mentoring Relationship as a Mentee. National Mentoring Resource Center.
Developed by the NMRC’s Youth Advisory Council, this one-page guide can be shared with prospective mentees to answer questions about what mentoring is and how to prepare for a mentoring relationship. 

Youth Mentee Guide: Grow Your Mentor Relationships. National Mentoring Resource Center.
A guide that can help explain what mentoring is and what to expect from a mentor to prospective mentees. It includes tips and recommendations from young people, for young people, on how to make the most of mentoring.