Research supports the idea that young people can be helped to successfully complete school through a relationship with a caring adult mentor. Mentors oftentimes provide the extra encouragement and support that may help struggling youth to complete their education. This effective practice shares ten techniques for developing and sustaining a successful mentoring relationship.

To promote and maintain successful mentoring relationships between youth and adults.

-Research shows that offering young people mentoring relationships with caring adults increases the likelihood that they will successfully complete school. Mentors can give young people who are struggling the extra encouragement and support that may help them choose to stay in school, raise their achievement levels, and graduate.
-By spending a few hours a week sharing activities, listening, encouraging, challenging, and building skills and self-reliance, volunteer mentors can help children from kindergarten through high school achieve academic success.
-Research conducted by Private/Public Ventures (P/PV, 2000) found that youth who are successfully matched with an adult are 52 percent less likely to skip school, earn slightly higher grades, and feel better about how they are doing in school.