Mentoring: Elements of Effective Practice

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The guidelines presented here are geared toward helping mentoring relationships thrive and endure. They include measures any mentoring program can implement to offer the best mentoring possible – mentoring that does every- thing in its power to help young people and keep them from harm’s way. These guidelines are based on solid research – research that affirms the impor- tance of accountability and responsibility in meeting young people’s needs. And, they are based on experience: The first mentoring Elements of Effective Practice were developed and published in 1990 by a national panel of mentoring experts brought together by MENTOR/National Mentoring Partnership and United Way of America. For more than a decade, those Elements served as the gold standard for mentoring.

These new guidelines are the culmination of a process that, once again, brought together many of the nation’s foremost authorities on mentoring. In 2003, this newly formed group began by reassessing the existing Elements. They took the best of those Elements and added new ideas and new practices that reflect the latest in mentoring policies, practices, experiences and research.