What is Mentoring? In recent years, mentoring has emerged as a strong response to the plight of youth at-risk. Mentoring programs have expanded rapidly with increasing numbers of students working one-to-one with young people in schools, community agencies, and other settings. The student mentor is both a friend and a role model who supports and encourages a younger partner in his/her academic and personal growth. The mentor is also a guide who helps a young person make the difficult change from childhood to adolescence, from elementary to middle school to high school. This time of transition is especially important, for it is a time when young people are making decisions about how much — or how little—they can expect to achieve. Mentors and young people develop their relationships as they participate together in social, cultural, and recreational activities, community service projects, tutoring, or any of the many different activities that friends enjoy. Whatever the activit