DOI: 10.3886/icpsr37494
title: Cross-age Peer Mentoring to Enhance Resilience Among Low-Income Urban Youth Living in High Violence Chicago Communities, 2014-2019
title: Archival Version

description: The goal of this mixed-methods study was to evaluate the effectiveness of community based cross-age mentoring to reduce negative outcomes related to violence exposure/engagement and promote positive development among African-American and Latinx youth from multiple sites serving four low-income, high violence urban neighborhoods, using youth mentors from the same high-risk environment. The program was named by youth mentors, "Saving Lives, Inspiring Youth" (or SLIY henceforth). Cross-age peer mentoring programs promise to solve problems and ineffectiveness of other types of mentoring programs, but few have been systematically studied in high-poverty, high-crime communities. In collaboration with several community organizations, a prospective approach was implemented to follow cross-age mentors and mentees for up to one year of mentoring. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were employed to examine possible changes in a number of relevant constructs, and to understand program impact in greater depth. Mentoring sessions lasting one hour took place each week, with an hour debriefing session for mentors following each mentoring session. Quantitative data were collected pre, post and at a 9-12 month follow-up. Throughout the mentoring intervention, several forms of qualitative data were gathered to make it possible for youth voices to permeate understanding findings, to illuminate program processes that youth perceived as helpful and not helpful, and to provide multiple perspectives on youths' resilience and their understanding of the risks they faced. Both mentors and community collaborators were trained and engaged as community researchers. School-based data were also collected. Demographic variables include participants' age, race, and grade in school.
description: The goal of this mixed-methods study was to evaluate the effectiveness of community based cross-age mentoring to reduce negative outcomes related to violence exposure/engagement and promote positive development among African-American and Latinx youth from multiple sites serving four low-income, high violence urban neighborhoods, using youth mentors from the same high-risk environment.
description: Mentoring sessions lasting one hour took place each week, with an hour debriefing session for mentors following each mentoring session. Quantitative data were collected pre, post and at a 9-12 month follow-up. Throughout the mentoring intervention, several forms of qualitative data, including entry letters and eco-maps, were gathered to make it possible for youth voices to permeate understanding findings, to illuminate program processes that youth perceived as helpful and not helpful, and to provide multiple perspectives on youths' resilience and their understanding of the risks they faced. Both mentors and community collaborators were trained and engaged as community researchers. Qualitative data in the form of mentor debriefing forms were collected at most mentoring sessions, and field notes were completed by staff observing every mentoring session.
description: Variables in the Mentee and Mentor datasets include variables on event attendance, school disciplinary and performance records, and survey data that includes participants attitudes towards their mentors or mentees, information about their home life, their attitudes towards school, drug and alcohol use, their attitudes towards problem solving, and demographic data. Variables in the Parent datasets include survey data with demographic information, as well as their child's activities and behavior patterns. Other datasets include survey data where mentors are debriefed on their experiences with their mentees, relationship mapping data, and data from participants' entry and exit letters.
description: Response Rates: After initial contact with schools and community locations to recruit youth into this study, 249 mentors completed data collection at baseline, including 148 treatment and 101 control mentors. In addition, 219 mentees completed data collection at baseline, including 132 treatment and 87 control mentees.
description: Presence of Common Scales: Measurement tools included: Youth Self-Report (Achenbach, 1991) Neighborhood Environment Scale (Elliot Huizinga and Ageton, 1982) Neighborhood Youth Inventory (Chipeur et al., 1999) Positive Youth Development Inventory: Character and Contribution sub-scales (Arnold, Nott and Meinhold, 2012) Revised scale concerning stress combining the Multicultural Events Schedule for Adolescents and the Stress Index (Gonzales, Gunnoe, Jackson and Tolan, 1995; Attar, Guerra and Tolan, 1994) Future Expectation Scale (Wyman et al., 1993) Beliefs about Aggression and Alternatives (Henry, Farrell and Project, 2004) Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure (Phinney, 1992) Mentor Strength of Relationship Scale (Rhodes, Schwartz, Willis and Wu, 2014) Attitudes towards Violence Scale (Funk et al., 1999) Attitudes toward Youth (Herrera et al., 2007) Grit (Duckworth and Quinn, 2009) Social Support Scale for Children - Revised (Dubow and Ullman, 1989) Leadership (Richards et al., 2013) Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (Rosenberg, 1965) Brief Generalized Self-Efficacy Scale (Tipton and Worthington, 1984) Interpersonal Reactivity Index (Davis, 1980) Social Interest Scale (Crandall, 1975)
description: A convenience sample of mentors was recruited from community schools in four high-poverty, high-crime urban neighborhoods, three African-American and one Latinx. A total of nine mentoring sites were established, each with mentees. Control youth were recruited from community schools in the same neighborhoods as the treatment sites.
description: Datasets: DS0: Study-Level Files DS1: Mentee Attendance Data DS2: Mentee Linking Variable Data DS3: Mentee Wave 1 Baseline Data DS4: Mentee Wave 3 Twelve Month Data DS5: Mentee Wave 4 Twenty-four Month Data DS6: Mentor and Mentee Attendance Data DS7: Mentor and Mentee Disciplinary Data DS8: Mentor and Mentee GPA Data DS9: Mentor Attendance Data DS10: Mentor Linking Variable Data DS11: Mentor Wave 1 Baseline Data DS12: Mentor Wave 2 Six Month Data DS13: Mentor Wave 3 Twelve Month Data DS14: Mentor Wave 4 Twenty-four Month Data DS15: Parent Packet Wave 1 Baseline Data DS16: Parent Packet Wave 3 Twelve Month Data DS17: Parent Packet Wave 4 Twenty-four Month Data DS18: Debriefing Forms Data DS19: Ecomap Data DS20: Entry Letters Data DS21: Exit Letter Data DS22: Photodocumentary Excerpts Data DS23: Archived Risk Coded Excerpts Data DS24: Archived Program Impact Coded Excerpts Data DS25: Archived Resilience Coded Excerpts Data
description: Urban adolescents residing in low-income, high-crime communities of color. Smallest Geographic Unit: Neighborhood
description: face-to-face interview; mail questionnaire; paper and pencil interview (PAPI); self-enumerated questionnaire