Webinar on Mentoring Youth in Foster Care

MENTOR to host Webinar on Mentoring Youth in Foster Care:
Emerging Research and Lessons from the Field

MENTOR will host an upcoming webinar which combines research and best practices on how to effectively provide mentoring services to youth in foster care. Mentoring for youth in the foster care system has been growing in popularity, as mentoring programs have enjoyed unprecedented growth in recent years. Recent studies indicate that youth in foster care who have a positive and significant relationship with at least one adult tend to fare better in the transition to adulthood. However, engineering these kinds of connections with this vulnerable population can be difficult. The need to get mentoring "right" is great, in light of the significant ruptures in important relationships that these youth have experienced.

Join us for a webinar on Friday, May 20, 2011 from 1:00 – 2:00 pm EST to hear from Dr. Renée Spencer, Associate Professor, Human Behavior, at Boston University School of Social Work and Dr. Mary Collins, Associate Professor, Social Welfare Policy, at Boston University School of Social Work. They will review the small but growing body of research on mentoring foster care youth. Colby Berger, Executive Director, Adoption & Foster Care Mentoring will discuss the challenges posed by serving these youth well and the practices that they have developed to meet these challenges. Also discussed will be what makes mentoring services for this population different from those for youth who are not in foster care.

Friday, May 20, 2011 from 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm, EST Register Now.

Presenter Biographies:

Colby Berger, EdM, MSW, is the Executive Director at Adoption & Foster Care Mentoring, one of the few mentoring organizations nationwide specifically and exclusively designed to serve young people who are involved in the child welfare system. As a former educator, Colby earned a Master's Degree in Education from Harvard University, and later turned her focus to child welfare and social services earning a Master's degree in Social Work from the Simmons School of Social Work. Colby came to AFC after working at The Home for Little Wanderers for seven years where she opened and oversaw a group home for LGBTQ teenagers, did clinical work in adoption and family stabilization team services, and facilitated support groups for foster and adoptive families.

Mary Elizabeth Collins, A.M., Ph.D. is Associate Professor, Social Welfare Policy, at Boston University School of Social Work. She has completed several research studies in the areas of foster youth transitioning from care to independence, child welfare workforce development, and evaluation of interventions with vulnerable youth. Current work continues in these areas, with a focus on the lessons of international comparisons.

Renée Spencer, EdD, LICSW, is Associate Professor, Human Behavior, at Boston University School of Social Work. Her research focuses on youth mentoring, specifically relational processes in more and less successful relationships. She is currently conducting a mixed-methods longitudinal study of the development youth mentoring relationships in community-based programs. She has published widely on youth mentoring and serves as a member of several boards and committees, including MENTOR/National Mentoring Partnership Research and Policy Council, The Center for the Advancement of Mentoring (TCAM) National Cadre of Mentoring Researchers, and the Big Brothers Big Sisters of America Research Advisory Council.