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Mentoring Early-Career Preventionists: Current Views from Mentors and Protégés

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Abstract

In prevention science, much of the training occurs outside of a formal graduate program and mentorship is invaluable to early-career individuals. A sample of the Society for Prevention Research (SPR) membership (N = 97) from a wide range of career levels completed an online questionnaire in spring 2010. Almost 20% identified as mentors, 32% as protégés, and 49% as both a mentor and a protégé. Most mentoring relationships were established in graduate school, but professional organizations such as SPR facilitated nearly one in five mentoring relationships. Qualitative results suggested that participants value their professional organization’s support of mentoring and would support initiatives to increase mentoring relationships specifically among SPR members. Although all mentor functions and protégé responsibilities were rated as important, professional support was the highest ranked mentor function and taking initiative the highest ranked protégé responsibility. Additionally, the qualitative results revealed that interpersonal skills and commitment to the mentoring process were seen as key to positive mentoring relationships. We also found that formal documentation of mentoring agreements was rare and a slight preference for a match on gender or ethnicity was observed for protégés from nondominant groups. The discussion includes implications for individuals and implications for promoting high-quality mentoring within professional organizations.

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Author notes

  1. Marie-Hélène Véronneau

    Present address: Department of Psychology, Université du Québec à Montréal, Montréal, QC, Canada

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Child and Family Center, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, USA

    Marie-Hélène Véronneau

  2. Department of Kinesiology and Health Education, College of Education, The University of Texas at Austin, 1 University Station D3700, Bellmont Hall 222, Austin, TX, 78712, USA

    Jessica Duncan Cance

  3. Center for Education and Drug Abuse Research, School of Pharmacy, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

    Ty A. Ridenour

Authors
  1. Marie-Hélène Véronneau
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  2. Jessica Duncan Cance
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  3. Ty A. Ridenour
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jessica Duncan Cance.

Additional information

Funding was provided in part by NIDA Center grant P50-05605. The authors thank Drs. Rex Forehand and J. Mark Eddy and the Early Career Preventionist Network Steering Committee for their feedback on the data collection instrument. We also thank Jennifer Lewis for facilitating the data collection and the Society for Prevention Research (SPR) members who responded to the survey and attended the luncheon meeting at the SPR Annual Meeting as well as the members who participated as panelists at the luncheon. This article is dedicated to the memory of Dr. John R. Z. Abela former mentor of the first author.

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Véronneau, MH., Cance, J.D. & Ridenour, T.A. Mentoring Early-Career Preventionists: Current Views from Mentors and Protégés. Prev Sci 13, 493–503 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11121-012-0276-3

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