**7. Conclusions**

The results of this study provide empirical evidence of the positive effects of social support on the emotional well-being of young immigrants and refugees. Specifically, the potential of mentoring programmes to cushion the stressful events to which they are subjected is made evident. The social support perceived during the Nightingale project contributed to improve some aspects related to the psychological well-being of the mentees, who saw their levels of personal satisfaction increase in a short period of time.

The data gleaned from this study sugges<sup>t</sup> that mentoring is associated with more positive indices of personal well-being, although it can produce different effects in women and men, as a review of the relevant literature has shown [63,70]. While scientific research has increasingly focused on observing the effects of mentoring on social inclusion, empirical work addressing the influence of sex on the process and impact of such a relationship is scarce and mostly comes from studies on school-based mentoring programmes [66,71,72]. Therefore, interdisciplinary work with a gender perspective is needed that can address the gaps that remain in the evaluation of youth mentoring and its effects differentiated by sex.

The results reveal the importance of school counsellors, psychologists and social workers providing immigrant minors with programmes that encourage the building of social networks and the promotion of social support. We believe that prioritising policies and services that ensure a socially supportive environment in the reception of young people of foreign origin may help reduce the stressors associated with the migration process, which place minors in a vulnerable situation. The post-mentoring outcomes support the scientific consensus in the field of youth mentoring regarding the key role that relationships with non-parental adults play in supporting the social inclusion and subjective well-being of young immigrants.

With the aim of promoting the implementation of social mentoring programmes in schools, the findings of this study will be presented to primary and secondary school teachers. Educational institutions must show concern about the reality of students of foreign origin, at risk of exclusion, so as to help them overcome the adversities that arise from the adaptation process, avoiding leaving scars that affect emotional stability and lead to poor academic performance. From what is stated in this study, it can be seen that there is a need to promote the implementation of mentoring programmes as a reception plan that fosters the development of supportive relationships between adults and minors that serve the latter as a resource to try to adapt to the new environment, learn the language, build local networks and plan for the future.

**Author Contributions:** Conceptualisation, A.S.-A., A.B.-E. and Ò.P.-F.; methodology, A.S.-A., A.B.-E. and Ò.P.-F.; validation, A.S.-A., A.B.-E. and Ò.P.-F.; formal analysis, A.S.-A. and A.B.-E.; resources and data curation, Ò.P.-F.; writing—original draft preparation, A.S.-A.; writing—review and editing, A.S.-A., A.B.-E. and Ò.P.-F.; funding acquisition, A.B.-E. and Ò.P.-F. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This research was funded by the Secretariat of Universities and Research of the Government of Catalonia's Ministry of Business and Knowledge, the European Union and European Social Fund. (FSE) (2020 FI-B1 00109).

**Institutional Review Board Statement:** The study was conducted according to the guidelines of the Declaration of Helsinki, and approved by the Institutional Review Board (or Ethics Committee) of the University of Girona under the code: CEBRU0001-2018 (6th of April 2018).

**Informed Consent Statement:** Informed consent was obtained from the parents of all subjects involved in the study as well as their assent.

**Data Availability Statement:** The data presented in this study are openly available in Harvard Dataserve repository at https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/ZXC8RC.

**Acknowledgments:** This study is part of the Project RECERCAIXA2017UdG, Applying Mentoring: Social and technological innovations for the social inclusion of immigrants and refugees, funded by the RecerCaixa programme, a collaboration of "La Caixa" Welfare Projects and the Catalan Association of Public Universities. We would also like to express our gratitude to the Chair for Social Inclusion of Rovira i Virgili University for its assistance.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.
