A story of uptake Effects and implementation of youth-initiated mentoring in a juvenile diversion programme

Youth-Initiated Mentoring (YIM) is an innovation that gives youth the autonomy to select natural mentors: non-parental adults from their social networks, such as grandparents or neighbours. Although YIM is considered promising for justice-involved youth, most existing evidence is correlational or qualitative. This dissertation examined the effect of YIM on resilience and delinquency among justice-involved youth using a quasi-experimental design, and explored boosters and barriers to implementation using qualitative methods.
The study was conducted at Halt, a nationwide diversion programme for youth (12-18 years) referred for minor offences. Multilevel analyses tested whether youth in the standard programme combined with YIM (N = 64) showed greater improvements in resilience factors and stronger declines in self-reported delinquency than youth in the standard programme alone (N = 55) at programme completion and six months later. Thematic analysis of focus groups with Halt professionals identified boosters and barriers to YIM implementation.
We found no evidence that YIM improved resilience or reduced delinquency. Although two-thirds of youth reported having a natural mentor, their presence did not mitigate delinquency risk. Natural mentors were, however, associated with more resilience factors, such as greater perceived social support, more support-seeking, and higher competence.
YIM implementation was low. Despite high mentor availability, only a minority of youth were matched to a YIM (N = 8). Low uptake was driven by professionals’ perspectives, limited perceived need among youth and caregivers, and organisational barriers. These challenges illustrate a broader story of uptake rather than the actual effect of YIM.