**2. Mentoring with Vulnerable Adolescents**

### *2.1. The Function of Integration in a New Social Reality*

There are many scientific studies that highlight the role that non-parental adults can play in the social inclusion of the most vulnerable collectives. The need to improve the support network of people at risk of exclusion has given rise in recent years to formal mentoring programmes, which provide a safe context for the development of relationships. The fundamental goal is to provide support for people who do not

usually come into contact with natural mentors or that lack the necessary social skills to identify and form this type of supportive relationship on their own. With this goal in mind, for the formal mentoring the programme recruits adult volunteers to provide friendship, guidance and support to those who most need it. While it is true that the mentoring that arises from natural networks of support usually lasts longer, with stronger a ffective bonds that last an average of almost a decade [5], formal mentoring has proven to be especially beneficial for those specific groups of minors and adolescents facing risks and adversity. However, not all people have a support network that can help them succeed. Erikson, McDonald and Elder [6] draw attention to the scarcity or absence of social capital in at-risk groups, some from poor communities where low levels of support can be exacerbated by an inability of adults to e ffectively connect the young people to opportunities that may significantly improve their life journeys.

The results of the scientific evaluations that have been carried out to date highlight that youth mentoring is related to better physical and mental health, as well as to fewer symptoms of depression or suicidal thoughts among young people [5]. An extensive body of research shows that the programmes increase the self-esteem [7,8] and personal satisfaction of the mentee [3] in addition to reducing their levels of stress and anxiety, which is particularly important when it comes to immigrants or refugees, some of them in an irregular situation, who have just arrived to the country and are under grea<sup>t</sup> stress due to the integration process in which they find themselves [9,10]. The scientific literature has also reported good results regarding social competencies and communication skills [8]. Studies show that a close bond with the mentor causes participants to develop more positive expectations about relationships with people in their environment, with their parents or friends, and to improve their quality [8,11,12]. This emotional stability is associated with improvements in academic performance and self-e fficiency [13], as well as a reduction in behavioural problems such as aggression [14], substance use [15] or delinquent behaviour [16]. As a result, mentoring programmes for minors and young people have grown in popularity as an e ffective intervention strategy for the social inclusion, health and well-being of the most vulnerable collectives [17]. In the United States, an estimated 2.5 million children and adolescents maintain formal mentoring relationships each year [18].

### *2.2. Social Support as a Source of Protection Against Stress*

The migration process entails an adaption e ffort whose intensity can be an additional risk factor for developing mental, social or behavioural health problems. The acculturative stress related to cultural di fferences and perceived racial discrimination in the new country increases the probabilities of young immigrants su ffering from anxiety, depression and other mental conditions [19,20], such as eating disorders [21] and alcohol consumption [22]. Refugees, in particular, run a greater risk of su ffering symptoms of posttraumatic stress due to exposure to war, long-term persecution or the loss of relatives both in their country of origin and during displacement [23]. Accumulated research has shown that young immigrants and refugees usually have worse mental health than the host population as a result of the challenges of the adaptation process which, as well as forcing them to adhere to new customs and sociocultural codes, is accompanied by changes and distress that occur on an individual level, such as separation from the family as well as from friends and close relationships, the loss of their ethnocultural surroundings, the learning of a new language and the prolongation of uncertainties about their migration status.

These young people su ffer from specific vulnerabilities and stress that require people to support them in a lasting way and remain at their side during the adaptation process. Mentoring initiatives are designed to facilitate practical help and advice that enables the minors to cope as best as they can in the new environment; for example, introducing them to local cultural characteristics and recreational opportunities. In Australia, Singh and Tregale [24] observed how mentoring improved participants' access to the networks of social and cultural capital networks. During the programme, the mentors acted as agents for the empowerment of immigrant minors in a process through which the mentees acquired tools to gain autonomy in the new country and achieve life goals. In Europe, Raithelhuber [25] reached similar results and found that mentoring served as a springboard for the e fficient integration of the youths participating in the study, unaccompanied refugees who, thanks to their mentors, saw their opportunities for civic participation increase. In the North American context, other studies corroborated both the more practical and instrumental e ffects of mentoring, such as learning the new language, improving academic performance or the acquisition of social skills [26], and the more emotional e ffects. For example, Gonzales, Suárez-Orozco and Dedios-Sanguineti [10] recognised that mentoring is especially helpful in reducing the levels of stress and anxiety of illegal immigrant adolescents, which also has a direct impact on reducing school dropout. However, there are still few empirical studies that shed light on the impact of mentoring programmes on the social inclusion of immigrant and refugee adolescents. This study aimed to address this knowledge gap in this particular area.

### *2.3. Relationship with Parents and Family Dynamics*

Empirical evidence shows that minors adapt to the new cultural context faster than their parents. The integration process for adult immigrants or refugees is fraught with di fficulties given the deterioration in cognitive flexibility and their solidified ethnicity [27]. This acculturation gap between parents and children increases generational conflicts, sometimes due to the concern of the elderly for the loss of the culture of origin. Perreira, Chapman and Stein [28], through their interviews with Latino migrants with residency in the United States, highlighted parents' concern and unease over the dissolution of cultural heritage and their sons and daughters' adoption of the values, norms and conduct of the majority culture. These di fferences in the adaptation process leave immigrant minors at a crossroads: on the one hand, they must learn the language and the cultural codes of the new country if they wish to thrive and be successful at school; while on the other hand, they are forced to retain the culture of origin in order to ward o ff conflict and continue maintaining positive relationships with their co-ethnic families and friends [29,30].

Paradoxically, the rapid acquisition of the vehicular languages causes these young people to take on responsibilities similar to those of the adults in the household, like answering phone calls, helping parents to fill out a job application or acting as interpreters in the doctor's surgery. In primary education, there is a strong assimilative pressure in which the language of instruction is Spanish, and only in the case of the autonomous communities, Catalan and Basque. As a result, the acquisition of vehicular languages is usually even faster in minors. One of the terms that has been used to describe this phenomenon is that of child language brokering [31], which is associated with higher levels of child stress and an increase in family conflicts [32]. In this context, or in others where the young people do not receive su fficient support from their parents due to the family structure or circumstances, mentoring can be a valuable source of support. The research of Dolan et al. [33] on the Big Brothers Big Sisters programme in Ireland supports this theory. After a study of around one hundred and fifty minors, the researchers discovered that mentoring was more beneficial for young people of single-parent families than for those who lived with both parents. After eighteen months, the di fference in outcomes between the two groups with regards to perceived support decreased steadily, demonstrating that mentoring can make up for the support that some young people lack.

### *2.4. Adolescents at Risk, Mentoring and Educational Success*

Some research has shown the benefits of mentoring with regards to learning and continuity of studies. For example, in the North American context, Erikson, McDonald and Elder [6] observed how young people from disadvantaged backgrounds who received the support of a non-parental adult were more likely to

enrol in a university. The availability of sources of help has been associated with academic success [34,35]. In particular, the presence of a mentor has shown that it can reduce a student's absenteeism, promote a sense of belonging to the school and improve educational expectations [36]. Herrera, Grossman, Kauh and McMaken [13] emphasise that learning di fficulties and the intensity with which they experience situations of risk and precariousness can push immigrant minors to processes of demotivation and disa ffection with school that lead to educational failure. However, the accumulated evidence indicates that mentoring relationships can reverse this situation and constitute a strong antidote to the dropout rate of immigrant minors and adolescents.

Young people are able to glimpse their future selves in their mentors who, with their experience, provide them with clear and generally positive messages about their own possibilities of success [37]. In the aforementioned research, Singh and Tregale [24] observed how the school motivation of young immigrants and refugee families improved after mentoring, as they saw in their older mentors where higher education could lead them to in the future. In a similar vein, based on their extensive literature review, Larose and Tarabulsy [38] indicated that youth mentoring—even though it takes place outside the educational context—helps to improve students' academic attitudes and their relationship with school, which can have a significant positive impact on student performance. In fact, the results of the first representative survey in the United States with adolescents, collected in The Mentoring E ffect [39], show that young people at risk of exclusion who have a mentor are 20% more likely to complete their studies that those who do not. The study of Herrera et al. [13] on the Big Brothers Big Sisters programme shows that mentoring improves the school performance of vulnerable minors, most of them from ethnic minorities, and their perception of their own academic skills.

### *2.5. Perceived Racial Discrimination and Cultural Mistrust*

There are many studies that show the negative psychological and social e ffects of racial discrimination in the immigrant population [40], especially in those that come from racial and ethnic minorities [41]. The empirical evidence indicates that stress stemming from the feeling of discrimination can—in addition to causing cardiovascular disorders [42]—cause symptoms of anxiety, depression, psychological distress or suicidal ideation that directly a ffect mental health [43]. Young people who have su ffered racialisation first-hand also tend to have greater cultural mistrust of other adults, which can negatively a ffect di fferent areas of their personal lives. For example, Cooper and Sánchez [44] observed how discrimination, as a subjective perception, with respect to the host society, aggravated the cultural mistrust of Latino boys, which led them to devalue the educational process and lower their academic performance. It has been shown that mentoring can help young people to establish positive intercultural relationships [3,45] and reduce the level of stress stemming from racial discrimination [46]. For this to be possible, the need for culturally aware mentors has been highlighted [47]. It has been demonstrated that adult volunteers who have greater intercultural competencies are more likely to develop greater emotional proximity with the minor and establish a positive relationship that enables the young person to benefit from it [48].
