Essay – Peer-Mentoring
Pre-Discussion
Peer-mentoring is a relationship between individuals who have an experience in common. There is usually one person who has more experience than the others. In the beginning, the more experienced individual is viewed as the “mentor.” The mentor can offer their expertise, knowledge, and skills in dealing with issues or situations. Even if the exchange begins lopsided, in that sense, the goal of this kind of peer-mentoring is to develop a more mutual relationship where everyone can learn something from the other. Being in a peer-mentoring relationship is different from other more structured mentor-mentee relationships. In peer-mentoring relationships, there is a unique power differential. This is because the mentor has more knowledge or a larger expertise base to draw from, and the mentee may not have a great deal to offer. I began participating in peer-mentoring in structured settings as far back as 1999. I had others more experienced than I offer their experience to me. After engaging in partnerships with my peers over the years, I found a great deal of value in being the person mentored. Also, by being the person who is mentoring others. Some of what I gained was relationship-building skills that can promote my personal growth and theirs. More specifically, I was able to reach individuals where they were at and encourage them. I had “been where they were at,” and I had the kind of experience that could get them to the next chapter in their life. I also found it to be a benefit to be able to feel as if “we were in this together.” My peer and I could discuss issues and situations we were experiencing, and I didn’t feel like I had to go it alone. I have gained leadership skills that have shaped how I approach my work now and in the future. A few of the concepts discussed by Culpeper and Qian regarding engagement in an online environment proved to be instructional in my position as a Statewide Peer Mentor at Northern Arizona University. I chose the following articles in my annotated bibliography based on my perception of their usefulness in my career path moving forward.
Culpeper, J., & Kan, Q. (2019). Communicative styles, Rapport, and student engagement: An online peer mentoring scheme. Applied Linguistics, 41(5), 756–786. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amz035
Culpeper and Qian conducted research focused on the impact a communicative style can have on engagement and participation in a peer-mentoring strategy with students using an online forum. The study’s primary data included 685 online posts. Then, this data was filtered to 26,000 words written (in 273 posts) written by the peer mentors in the study. The article discussed three distinct methods of creating rapport with the students that were identified. The study was a functional analysis of keywords. They used this approach to understand the perspective of the peer-mentoring “coach”, driving conversation among their peers in the online activities. Culpeper and Qian used a rapport management framework described by the author of Culturally Speaking: Culture, Communication, and Politeness Theory, Spencer-Oatey, which described rapport strategies as having four orientations: enhancement, maintenance, neglect, and challenge. (2019, pg. 762) Culpeper and Qian found that engaging in the enhancement communicative style, that incorporated strengthening the peer relationship, was the most effective of the four. The peer-mentor with the most success did so through encouraging learning and providing moral support which was readily accepted by their peers. Furthermore, it encouraged more interaction not just between themselves and the peer-mentor but with their other online peers as well.
Douglas, L. J., Jackson, D., Woods, C., & Usher, K. (2019). Rewriting stories of trauma through peer‐to‐peer mentoring for and by at‐risk young people. International Journal of Mental Health Nursing, 28(3), 744–756. https://doi.org/10.1111/inm.12579
During adolescence, young people can experience trauma. When this trauma is not effectively dealt with, they can become long-term consumers in the mental health system. (Douglas et al.,2019) In the absence of these services, these youth become adults with more adverse mental health challenges. This article provided insight into the motivation of individuals to be a part of peer-to-peer mentoring. “A qualitative narrative approach was used in this study. Storytelling plays a pivotal part in human lives; it describes our experiences and allows us to make meaning of our experiences through the stories we share.” (2019, pg. 746) Using this approach they interviewed the peer mentors to analyze the data they shared. Three themes surfaced: the recognition that their story can help others through the positive power of their story, recognizing the value of sharing their story and the importance of reshaping their story into a positive outcome. This presents a dynamic opportunity for the mental health care community. Coupled with other traditional mental health interventions peer mentors such as these could provide a strategy to bridge the generational gap between the service provider and consumer. This novel approach could help the at-risk youth that is trying to heal their trauma and at the same time, it would assist the peer-mentor in creating a more positive self-identity.
Eby, L. T., Allen, T. D., Evans, S. C., Ng, T., & Dubois, D. (2008). Does Mentoring Matter? A Multidisciplinary Meta-Analysis Comparing Mentored and Non-Mentored Individuals. Journal of vocational behavior, 72(2), 254–267. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvb.2007.04.005
I thought about all the work that I have been engaged in over the last few decades and I began to wonder if I had given too much weight to the positive results that are often attributed to peer-mentoring. The research conducted provided a detailed analysis of several hypotheses that I thought were crucial to understanding the rate of success of peer-mentoring. The results found that “ Regardless of the meta-analytic method used (fixed or random-effects), mentoring was significantly related to favorable behavioral, attitudinal, health-related, interpersonal, motivational and career outcomes”. (Eby et al., 2019) However, while their research did find that peer-mentoring is successful, the data appeared to show that the overall effect was small. It is important to consider that often when programs like this are presented, the focus group is at-risk youth who have come to these programs already experiencing multiple barriers to their success. In this study, the focus was on whether there was a significant difference between those who were engaged in a mentoring experience and those that were not. The data seemed to show that individuals that participated in mentoring found success through these types of relationships.
Fisher, M. H., Athamanah, L. S., Sung, C., & Josol, C. K. (2019). Applying the self‐determination theory to develop a school‐to‐work peer mentoring programme to promote Social Inclusion. Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities, 33(2), 296–309. https://doi.org/10.1111/jar.12673
The use of peer-mentoring as an intervention can be used with other segments of the population as well. Having a child with an intellectual and developmental disability (IDD) I can attest to the fact that there are barriers to social inclusion that severely limit his opportunities to participate with members of the community. Fisher et al., cited the authors, Ryan and Deci’s, Social Determination Theory as the framework for the program they developed. The program discussed in this article was developed as a method to support the inclusion of individuals with IDD on the college campus as well as a strategy to encourage interaction between same-age peers, with and without IDD, to promote attitude change. The findings concluded that the program had a positive effect on both the mentors and mentees. “Engaging in a valuable social-environmental context impacted the nature of the mentee’s relationships with the peer mentors as well as their own personal growth expectations.” (Fisher et al., pg. 304) As workers in the social work field, we can be champions of programs like these and promote their use as options for traditional services for individuals with IDD. While the emphasis is placed on the individuals with IDD as being the primary beneficiaries of programs like these, their nondisabled peers benefit from these programs as well.
Thompson, C., McDonald, J., Kidd, T., Falkmer, T., Bölte, S., & Girdler, S. (2020). “I don’t want to be a patient”: Peer Mentoring Partnership Fosters Communication for Autistic University students. Scandinavian Journal of Occupational Therapy, 27(8), 625–640. https://doi.org/10.1080/11038128.2020.1738545
As I consider that working with parents who have children with intellectual and developmental disabilities, I must consider what my role might be as a professional helper and what opportunities there are in the community for those I serve. As a complementary intervention, peer-to-peer mentoring may be an option for young adults who are transitioning to a post-secondary environment. This research article by Thompson et al. provided quantitative data related to the success of these types of programs. It also provided qualitative data that was evaluated using an interpretive phenomenological analysis approach which focused on examining the personal reflections of the individuals interviewed. “The merged qualitative and quantitative results of this study suggest that the mentor-mentee partnership assists in improving the social communication of autistic university students, with the relationship underpinning the success of peer mentoring.” (2020, pg. 638) With this peer-mentoring strategy, the autistic students improved their self-efficacy because the mentors provided a good model. It is important to remember that there are characteristics of Autism that can be challenging in any relationship. The peer-mentors in the study assisted in mitigating some of these challenges. As a part of this program, there were regularly scheduled events. This mentoring partnership provided a reason for the communication between the students to happen, and it facilitated more open communication between the pair. This became a prime opportunity for the student with Autism to improve on their self-advocacy skills because they had a model. Because they had a model, they were able to find ways to better communicate when they were stressed and needed additional assistance. In the long term, the psychological support that the autistic student received could be seen as an improvement in their overall mental health outcomes.
Post Discussion
The notion of using peer-to-peer mentoring as a mental health intervention is not new. In fact, I exercised mentoring techniques beginning about 20 years ago. Various approaches were used depending on the environment. For instance, when I was working as an instructor for a non-profit focused on getting women to take advantage of educational and employment opportunities, I used a peer-oriented approach because I had been in some of the same situations the women found themselves in. So, I found a certain ease in letting them know that they were not alone in their struggles and helping them navigate through their life’s circumstances so that they could go back to school or find meaningful employment. When I was employed through a local non-profit to assist individuals with mental and behavioral health challenges on the path to recovery, I often found myself using a different tact. In this instance, I focused on helping them rebuild their personal narrative. Creating opportunities for them to go out into the community with confidence about the person they were becoming instead of shame about the person they had been.
My son was born with an intellectual and developmental disability nearly twelve years ago now. At first, I was the one being mentored by other parents who knew the struggles that I was facing as they had faced them as well. I was in the position of the mentee; learning new skills to advocate for my child and his healthcare needs. So far, I have learned new advocacy skills and my son has had positive healthcare outcomes because of it.
The research that I reviewed in this bibliography helps to point out its efficacy from different vantage points. There were insights about the framework necessary for making a program successful, thoughtful commentary about how it can be effective for different segments of the population, and data to support its efficacy and ideas about how peer-mentoring can be used to improve healthcare outcomes. Throughout the years, I have seen the power of peer-mentoring in many different facets and continue to be curious about how this relationship-building process can transform the world.
Rosa Rodriguez Saiz 