Supplementing Program Profiles in Evidence Clearinghouses with Insights for Practice: a Qualitative Investigation of Application to Youth Mentoring Programs in CrimeSolutions

TL;DR

This study explores how adding practical insights to program profiles in a youth mentoring evidence repository can help practitioners improve their programs.

Contribution

The study introduces 'Insights for Mentoring Practitioners' to enhance evidence-based program profiles for better application in practice.

Findings

Themes include aligning program goals with implementation and evaluation.

Connecting mentoring to mentees' home and environment is emphasized.

Tailoring mentor engagement and optimizing mentoring within multi-component programs are highlighted.

Abstract

Evidence-based program repositories have been designed to help practitioners in their decision-making. Most repositories supplement summaries of effectiveness evidence with information intended to assist with implementation of each included program (e.g., training costs). It is less common for guidance to be included to support translation of findings for a broader range of purposes, such as enhancing related programs already in place. To help address this gap within the area of youth mentoring, the National Mentoring Resource Center has appended “Insights for Mentoring Practitioners” to profiles of 47 mentoring programs included in the CrimeSolutions.gov repository of the National Institute of Justice. We qualitatively analyzed these commentaries to elucidate themes across them that can inform the development and improvement of mentoring programs. Themes included (1) ensuring alignment across program goals, design, implementation, and evaluation; (2) connecting the intervention to mentees’ home, parents, and larger environment; (3) tailoring mentor engagement and support to effectively serve youth; and (4) optimizing the role of mentoring within multi-component programs. Discussion focuses on how findings inform the improvement of mentoring programs, and how content geared toward the translation of evidence to practice could enhance and improve evidence repositories.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11121-025-01841-8.