Mentoring children and young people for social inclusion: global approaches to empowerment

Mentoring Children and Young People for Social Inclusion critically analyses the challenges and possibilities of mentoring approaches to youth welfare and equality. It explores existing youth mentoring programmes targeted towards youth in care, immigrant, and refugee populations, and considers the extent to which these can aid social inclusion. The book compiles works by scholars from different countries focused on how child and youth mentoring has been changing globally in recent years and how these changes are identified and approached in different contexts. The book seeks to address what empowering youth means in different socio-political contexts, how mentoring is approached by governments and NGOs, and how these approaches shape mentoring relationships. It provides insights on how mentoring can tackle structural inequalities and work towards child and youth empowerment. This book will be of great interest for academics, scholars, and postgraduate students in the area of inclusive education and mentoring. It will also be useful reading for social workers, community developers, and practitioners working in NGOs, as well as for governments looking for innovative ways to generate interventions in the educational and social arena.

Cover -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Contents -- List of illustrations -- List of contributors -- Preface -- 1. Critical autonomy, social capital, and mentoring programmes for children and youth -- 2. The importance of being present: Mentors as "presence practitioners" -- 3. The role of mentoring and service learning in youth's critical consciousness and social change efforts -- 4. New approaches to empower youth to recruit mentors in the United States -- 5. Youth-Initiated Mentoring: Promoting and improving the social networks of youth with complex needs in the Netherlands -- 6. Youth mentoring and multiple social support attunement: Contributions to understand youth social development and well-being -- 7. The methodological issues in the assessment of quality and the benefits of formal youth mentoring interventions: The case of the Czech Big Brothers Big Sisters/Pět P -- Conclusions -- Index.