A Social-‐Justice Informed Evaluation of a Mentorship-Based Program Pairing At-Risk Youth and Holocaust Survivors
This paper describes a social justice informed, formative evaluation of a community-based intervention program in our community that paired marginalized Latinx youth and Holocaust survivor mentors. This program is a unique effort to address the issues facing this youth popula...
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| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Ball State University Libraries
2016-12-01
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| Series: | Journal for Social Action in Counseling and Psychology |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://openjournals.bsu.edu/jsacp/article/view/99 |
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| Summary: | This paper describes a social justice informed, formative evaluation
of a community-based intervention program in our community that paired marginalized Latinx
youth and Holocaust survivor mentors. This program is a unique effort to address the issues
facing this youth population through difficult dialogues and mentorship from a group who has
clearly suffered oppression. Using a qualitative, community-based approach, eight program
participants were interviewed to explore the aspects of the program that were helpful or
challenging among youth mentees and survivor mentors. We reflect on the success of
mentorship interventions in promoting bridges of understanding between populations with
different combinations of power and privilege. Emergent themes from the evaluation suggest
that this community-based mentorship program led to several positive outcomes, including
increased openness to diversity, increased empathy, and increased potential meaning-making
for mentor survivors, as well as some challenges such as clearer program expectations and
program planning issues. Using a lens of Positive Youth Development and social justice, we
detail the lessons learned from this mentoring program for future counselors and
psychologists interested in program development and evaluation. We also provide reflections
on the formative program evaluation process for future community-based researchers and the
personal impact of the experience on the students in training. Finally, we reflect on impact
validity and the systems level transformative change that can be promoted through
community-based programs such as this one. |
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| ISSN: | 2159-8142 |