Seeking Young People to Participate in our Focus Groups!

As a part of MENTOR Independence Region’s Strength of Relationships According to Youth Report project, we are seeking young people to participate in focus groups to share their opinions and experiences about how adults show up for young people. Young people who participate must be available to participate in person for a 75-minute focus group and will earn a $25 Visa Gift Card!

The purpose of these focus groups is to hear what young people think about mentoring. MIR sees mentoring as adult-youth relationships grounded in love and caring with a common purpose and eye to the future. MIR wants to know what youth have, want, and need from their relationships with adults in order to thrive. MIR sees young people as experts who know best about their lives and what they want from mentoring relationships, and we want to talk directly with young people to understand the impact of positive mentoring relationships on young people’s lives.

This Focus Group discussion will be used to inform a project called the State of Relationships According to Youth. The goal of this project is to amplify youth voices and perspectives to improve the field of mentoring and ultimately address social justice issues in our local community of Philadelphia. We aim to transform structures of inequity that affect Greater Philadelphia’s youth by strengthening mentoring and informing stakeholders across sectors what YOUTH have, want, and need from formal and informal mentoring relationships in order to thrive on the path to adulthood.

We will advance the mentoring movement by learning directly from youth using Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) methods. We will learn young people’s perceptions of the current state of both formal and informal mentoring relationships. We will assess the availability of those caring and supportive relationships to young people, the quality of those relationships according to youth, and the ways that mentoring needs to improve to better serve them. The research will specifically focus on the constructs of Youth Centrism and Racial Equity. Our State of Relationships According to Youth Report, will serve as a launchpad to advance the conversation within the mentoring field to become more equitable and youth-centric though digital communications, convenings with partners and stakeholders, conference submissions, and other thought leadership opportunities. We anticipate a Winter 2023-24 release of the report.

Focus Groups will take place between 5/15/23 and 8/15/23. We are seeking youth participants from all walks of life across Philadelphia. Participants must be between the ages of 16 and 24 years old, must sign (or have an adult sign) consent forms to participate. Participants do not have to be a part of a formal youth program or mentoring program to participate.

For more information or to get involved, please contact Abby Ellis or Adelaide Moschler at mentorteam@mentorir.org!  Download our Youth Relationships Focus Groups Flyer today!