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Mentoring Resource Center
The risks of a cross-age peer mentoring model are understood
and accounted for.
While there is tremendous potential for success with cross-age peer mentoring, there are
also risks involved. Emerging research indicates that programs must pay attention to several
critical areas if they are to reach their goals. Among the risks that must be accounted
for in a peer mentoring model:
Mentors and mentees may not fully understand their roles—Being a “wise and
trusted” source of guidance is not an easy role for a teenager. Adult mentors are
successful, in part, because they often have life experience and knowledge that
provide both wisdom they can share with a mentee and context for their role as a
support to youth. Typically, peer mentors do not have such life experience to draw
on. They will need extra training on the role of a mentor, tips for being supportive
to others, and instructions on where to turn for help with problems that are beyond
their power to address. Program expectations that might be obvious to an adult
may need to be spelled out to youth early and often, such as the importance of
timeliness or the need to call in if they are unable to make a meeting.
Mentees may not understand how a mentor can help them reach their goals, feel
awkward or intimidated working with a slightly older student, or feel that a referral
to the program is a form of punishment. They need thorough pre-match orientation
to get them off to a good start. Both mentors and mentees need a lot of explanation
from the program about exactly how they will be working together and what
they can achieve with their mentoring relationship.
Peer mentors can sometimes provide negative role modeling—High school–age
mentors can be very influential figures for younger students, who often look up to
these older peers in ways that they would not look up to an adult mentor. This is
a powerful role for teenagers to fill and there is always the danger that they will
model negative behaviors and attitudes for their mentee. The last thing you want
in your program are mentors who, intentionally or not, encourage the very antisocial
or delinquent behaviors your program hopes to address, a circumstance some
researchers have termed “deviancy training” (Patterson, Dishion, & Yoerger, 2000).
Thorough screening, ongoing training and support, regular check-ins with mentor
and mentee, and match supervision can help alleviate these problems.
Peer mentoring relationships may struggle with consistency and quality—The
social dynamics of peer relationships give mentors the power to do both great good
and great harm to the mentees with whom they are working. It can be traumatic to
mentees when mentors fail to show up for meetings or appear indifferent to them.
Mentees may feel rejected, and there is considerable potential for them to internalize
negative feelings about themselves or the program. Program staff must always
explain to mentees why their mentor is unable to make a scheduled meeting. Mentors
who consistently miss meetings need reminders about the importance of consistent
participation. And if mentors need to drop out of the program, for whatever
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