Professor Spencer Appointed to Mentoring Initiative Advisory Committee

Assistant Professor Renee Spencer has been named to the Advisory Committee of The Mass Mentoring Partnership’s (MMP) Quality-based Membership Initiative. She is one of twenty members, and the only representative from an academic setting and a school of social work. Spencer is particularly interested in the role that strong relationships with adults play in adolescent psychological health and well-being; she recently completed a qualitative interview study with urban adolescents and their adult mentors.

According to the Mass Mentoring Partnership, “In its final form, the MMP initiative will implement a statewide membership that helps to ensure excellence and quality expansion in the youth mentoring field. It will be designed to:

* offer a meaningful “indicator of quality” based on the nationally recognized Elements of Effective Practice for youth mentoring programs to benchmark their program practices and outcomes, and to leverage for marketing, recruitment and funding purposes;

* increase MMP and the field’s ability to attract more resources and funding;

* further expand and broaden MMP’s capacity-building services for programs;

* offer a more substantial, systematic and defined relationship between MMP and mentoring programs in its network; and

* strengthen overall service delivery in the mentoring field across the state."

For more information about The Mass Mentoring Partnership, please visit their website at http://www.mentoring.org/mass/ For more information on Professor Spencer’s research and work in mentoring, please contact her at rspenc@bu.edu