Mentoring Children in Foster Care: Impact on Graduate Student Mentors

Fostering Healthy Futures (FHF) is a randomized controlled trial of an intervention for preadolescent youth placed in foster care as a result of maltreatment. As part of the FHF program, graduate students spend 16-20 hours per week mentoring two youth in foster care and receive intensive training and supervision. During the summer and fall of 2009, 50 of the 52 mentors who participated in the FHF program between the summers of 2002 and 2008 completed an online survey. Almost all reported that their participation in the FHF program was helpful or very helpful in training them to work with high-risk children and families, diverse communities, multiple systems, and other professionals. Qualitative analyses of mentors' responses to open-ended questions yielded several salient themes.