There is no substitute for mentors and students spending consistent time together. If the goal of a mentoring program is to establish a significant relationship, a minimum of one interaction per week of at least a few hours in duration seems to be the standard. If the objective is to just expose youth to middle-class role models, more occasional contact may be enough. Setting Up Tasks as Scaffolding. When mentors and students have something to do or work on together, it gives them more direction.
Tasks can absorb initial nervous energy, and provide a basis for conversation between partners.
The key is finding the right task that interest both parties. While tutoring is often a medium selected, this arrangement can be ineffective, since the parties must stop tutoring in order to converse. Most practitioners agree that some kind of orientation to adolescence, an urban environment, and poverty is a good idea. In order to combat the isolation in which most mentoring is conducted, programs should provide time for the mentors to get together to provide each other with emotional support, share experiences, and develop solutions to common difficulties. Mentoring teams, where several adults share mentoring responsibilities for several youths, can also help reduce isolation in programs.