Researchers from Loyola University Chicago are investigating the impact of cross-age mentoring for reducing negative outcomes related to exposure to community violence and delinquency and promoting resiliency and positive development among mentors and mentees from low-income, high crime, urban neighborhoods. Cross-age peer mentoring is a sustained, long-term relationship in which an older peer guides a younger mentee. In the Saving Lives, Inspiring Youth program, high school students mentor middle school students from the same communities. Matched pairs of mentors and mentees meet for weekly hour-long sessions over the course of a year, engaging in activities that project staff design to facilitate prosocial attitudes and behavior and to develop the mentoring relationship. One hour debriefing sessions with the mentors follow each of the mentoring sessions.

OJJDP funded this project under the OJJDP FY 2014 High-Risk Mentoring Research program, which supports research and evaluations to further examine how certain characteristics, components, and practices of mentoring programs can best support youth who are at particularly high risk for delinquency.

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