Building Strong Relationships with your Mentee

Grounded in decades of research and best practice, this course helps mentors build and sustain meaningful connections with their mentees.

Developed by Dr. Jean Rhodes (co-author of MENTOR’s Elements of Effective Practice) in collaboration with youth relationship expert Professor Marc Karver, PhD (University of South Florida), the training translates relationship science into actionable strategies. Topics include:

• building trust
• repairing relational missteps
• showing empathy, attunement, cultural humility
• setting and achieving goals
• managing relationship closure

Decades of research across mentoring and related helping professions consistently point to one conclusion. The quality of the relationship is the single strongest predictor of whether young people benefit from mentoring and related interventions. Meta-analyses of mentoring programs and child and adolescent psychotherapy show that when trust, attunement, and alliance are strong, outcomes follow (DuBois, Portillo, Rhodes, Silverthorn, and Valentine, 2011; Karver, De Nadai, Monahan, and Shirk, 2018). This course translates that evidence into the practical relational skills mentors need to build, repair, and sustain connections that produce real change.