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Description
Mentoring refers to a cultural, natural or professional relationship that results from a person working with peer(s) or an older person(s) to develop their skills within the expectations of a cultural, religious, political, social, academic or professional context. Mentoring can happen at individual, family, group or community level. Often, literature speaks of professional mentoring but other communities identify more with culturally or naturally situated mentoring. As with other immigrants, young people from an African background encounter unique social, psychological and economic challenges that could be addressed using culturally informed interventions. While there is a lot of research on youth mentorship in Australia, less is known about mentoring young people from African backgrounds. Therefore, this research was consummated to address this gap in the literature with the ultimate intention of contributing to interventions. We searched literature on the subject from databases on the University of Wollongong (UOW) library website but also outside. We were searching for researches and reports on mentoring programs or models for young people of African origin throughout the world. Twenty-five (25) articles from Australia, USA, UK and South Africa met this inclusion criteria and were reviewed. Twenty-four articles described a mentoring program or model each, some briefly yet some in detail. One article described two different programs, resulting in a total of 26 programs and models. The 26 programs and models were grouped into seven approaches: individual; family; group; community; critical or transformational; natural; and cultural. Before the review was done, background information about mentoring was gathered. This report will start by providing this background information about mentoring in general; mentoring in the African context and a summary of the situation of young people of African origin in Australia. It will then describe the methodology used during the review and the programs and models found in the literature reviewed. It will end with a brief section on issues, lessons and themes arising from the review. The next activity involves presenting this report to organizations in the Illawarra region for co-sense making. In the process of co-sense making, the researchers will gain insights into programs and models used in the Illawarra region while the service providers from the organizations will gain insights from approaches that we found in the literature reviewed. This mutual process will also help in identifying areas for future research as well as opportunities for collaboration.
ISBN
978-1-74128-328-0
Publication Date
2020
Publisher
School of Health and Society, University of Wollongong, 28p
Recommended Citation
Mugumbate, Jacob; Keevers, Lynne; and Ravulo, Jioji, (2020), A systematic review of programs and models used to mentor young people of African origin in Australia and other parts of the world, School of Health and Society, University of Wollongong, 28p.
https://ro.uow.edu.au/uowbooks/29