*Sometimes, if I have a serious problem, I don't know what to do. [* . . . *] Well, I don't know, that nobody helps you here; well, difficult.* (Mourad, non-mentored youth)

The availability and quality of the forms of support in the country in which a person is settling has been shown to have an impact on psychological distress [42]. Furthermore, support networks are important for reducing the feelings of isolation and loneliness in migrants who are settling in a new country [50,60]. Loneliness in unaccompanied young migrants appears in the absence of people who care about them, and it has been demonstrated that new social contacts have a positive effect in combatting it [80]. However, in this study, we have found that young migrants who did not participate in the mentoring programme lacked strong networks of support and new social contacts. In fact, feelings of loneliness and the lack of forms of support were aspects that the non-mentored youths mentioned in the interviews. In this regard, Mustafá, perhaps because he was not able to connect with anyone who could help him to solve his problems, expressed the following:

*Everything that you have to do, there is nobody that's going to help you. You always have to do things on your own, with the language or without the language. Nobody cares about your stuff; you have to do it alone. Before, in the centre, they always said "come on, I'll go with you to the doctor", "come on, we'll go with you to such and such* . . . *", "we'll go with you to look for courses." Always, everything that you're going to do, "we'll go with you." Here they don't go with you, they say: "Ok, go alone, you're an adult", but this is normal, it doesn't matter. [* . . . *] When you are in Morocco, you always share things with your family, your parents* . . . *and now you live here alone. You'll always be alone.* (Mustafá, non-mentored)

It has been identified that turning 18 generates a degree of psychological distress in unaccompanied youths [43]. In fact, this distress was identified in the two groups that were studied (mentored and non-mentored youths). However, independent life after leaving the residential centre they had stayed in as minors seemed to affect the non-mentored youths more. Just as the mentored youths were able to identify people around them (mostly the mentors) who gave them support, the non-mentored youths highlighted this feeling of loneliness after moving to the flat of the transition to adulthood programme. This more independent life has been shown to generate greater psychological distress in their lives [46]. Rashid explicitly mentioned this greater difficulty in finding support after turning 18 and moving to the transition to adulthood flat:

*Now since I am over 18, I have some difficulties. You have to get by on your own. You have to make a living by yourself. Nobody helps you. [* . . . *] It's not like being a minor. When you are older you have to do everything alone, nobody helps you. If you want to do something, manage papers or go to an office, you have to learn to speak, learn how to do it. The difference when you are younger is that in the care centre they do everything for you.* (Rashid, 19)

4.2.5. Absence of Alternative Educational Pathways in Non-Mentored Youths

The lack of social support also seems to have had an effect on the creation of pathways designed to continue studying at higher levels of formal education. As we mentioned, these young people have doubts about whether to continue studying in formal education or whether to seek courses that guarantee rapid access to the labour market. Ahmed,

another young man from the control group, also expressed many doubts about what to study. These doubts have made him undertake a training and insertion programme to be a sales assistant, a course in the hotel sector, as well as various adult training courses. As he commented, the youth worker told him that he had to study before working, and he promised to do so, in part, to be able to access the housing benefit. However, his explanation lacked any positive mention of continuing studying at higher educational levels, such as in the case of most of the young people in the control group:

*I live in a government-run flat, and when we had to enter it we had to sign some rules. These rules say that you have to study. Moreover, when we have to change the papers, we need studies, if not, they can take them away from us. So we are now studying and obtaining diplomas so that when we have the papers, they authorise us to work and we can work in many places. [* . . . *] I have 4 or 5 professional diplomas: in sales, I am also studying in the hotel sector and I also want to have a diploma for hairdressing. Because if one day there is no work in sales, it won't matter, we can go to the hotel sector. If there is no work in the hotel sector, then we'll try hairdressing*. (Ahmed, 18)

This strong wish to enter the labour market drove Ahmed to follow an educational path that was more focused on gaining quick labour insertion. Generally speaking, the possibility of studying higher education courses within formal education was not mentioned, nor did they mention having received messages that promoted doing higher educational studies or having had meaningful conversations with adults in their social environment that encouraged reflection on their future education. Other young people of the control group mentioned the possibility of continuing to study some courses in the afternoons, after finding a job. In this regard, another of the non-mentored youths, Youssef, made a similar reflection to that of Ahmed with regard to the aim of gaining quick labour insertion. He explained why he preferred to continue with the training course that he was doing, instead of seeking a more prolonged path in formal education:

*I am doing a PFI (training course) in cooking, waitering and catering in general, in which I work as a waiter and cook. [* . . . *] Next year, you choose only the thing you like most, I mean, if you want to be a waiter or a cook. I have considered it, but I don't know if I'm going to continue with one of cooking or waitering. Also, [the study centre] hires you if you do well. If you look for work, they help you get it, and they also hire you. So in this way I'm not going spend two years for nothing.* (Youssef, 18)

Thus, taking these qualitative analysis findings into account, we suggest that in order for young people to develop this motivation to continue within formal education, it is important that they receive messages that help them reflect on this option of continuing to study at higher levels of formal education.

#### 4.2.6. Targeted and Problem-Specific Mentoring Programs for Unaccompanied Youths

A programme is considered to have a targeted approach when mentoring is directed specifically at a young population and when it is designed specifically to address the challenges of this population [64]. Studies that have focused on examining the different approaches to mentoring have highlighted that programmes that focus on the challenges of a specific population have a greater effect in terms of academic [81], psychological [82], and social [83] outcomes. One important element here is that mentors are trained so they can directly address the problems related to the group of young people they are trying to support [83]. The mentors of the *Referents* programme highlighted this training as very important in helping them feel equipped and able to better understand the difficulties of the young people. Here are some comments from the mentors during the interviews. They mainly highlight as positive elements of the training regarding the possible difficult situations that may arise during mentoring and learning the legal context of the young people:

*In the course, at the beginning, they told us (mentors) everything that might happen to them (mentees) [* . . . *] It of course puts you in a difficult situation and I think that is very* *good because it's a way to make you understand that not everything is beautiful. Perhaps the boy comes to you one day and asks you something* . . . *and you don't know how to respond* . . . (Mirela, mentor)

*When you start training you don't quite understand why you have to do a training* . . . *But then you find yourself in so many situations* . . . *And you think: "they told me that this would happen and that the other thing would happen too* . . . *".* (Antonia, mentor)

*They gave us the context of the current legal framework of the youths that arrive, whether they have asked for political asylum or with regards to unaccompanied minors* . . . *they tell you all about this.* (Inés, mentor)

The mentors also emphasised that the support of the mentoring programme was constant throughout the established mentoring period. Therefore, any doubts that arose regarding how to act were also addressed by the programme's supervising team. This made it easier for the mentors to know what to do and how to handle doubts practically the moment they arose:

*I think the feedback of Helena (mentoring programme practitioner) was* . . . *We were able to speak on many occasions; I left her a lot of audios (via instant messaging), especially at the beginning about how the session (the meeting with the young person) had gone* . . . *The answers help you a little to resolve concerns and doubts that the sessions brought up and other more specific things.* (Miquel, mentor)

*Especially on the issue of persevering more or less with their education. For me, education is the way out of marginality, to the extent that this is possible for each person* . . . *Anything that is education is the best that a person can do* . . . *And someone of this age (talking about the mentored youths) I am very sure about this: education, education, education. The thing is that for them a work permit is important. So, of course, I asked him (the mentoring programme practitioner) if I should insist [* . . . *] How far should I press here* . . . *things like that* . . . *A few guidelines to avoid putting my foot in it.* (Ariadna, mentor)

#### **5. Discussion**

This research aimed to identify whether the absence or presence of adult mentors providing social support can condition unaccompanied youths' well-being and their future prospects in their new context, especially taking into account implications for their transition to adulthood. The findings of this study showed the existing connections between the social support unaccompanied youth have in the receiving society, their mental health, and the possibilities for constructing new educational futures. Those who have less caring relationships (such as those from the control group) counted on the support of youth workers who helped them to comply with the formalities of their transition to adulthood, but most of them felt left emotionally on their own. Thus, coming of age for these young people became an odyssey that altered their mental health and well-being due to the pressure they felt when coping with housing and legal status once they turned 18 and left the minor protection system. However, we have observed that those youths who had broader social support because of their participation in a mentoring programme saw improvements in their psychological well-being outcomes (such as self-esteem, resilience and youth hope), and that such support provided them with the emotional stability to seek a higher educational path and achieve a safer transition to adulthood.

These results obtained with unaccompanied migrant youths corroborate prior research showing the significant effects of mentoring programmes on various youth outcomes, such as resilience, self-esteem, or youth hope, for youths either in care or transitioning out of the foster care system [84,85]. While some meta-analyses have shown that these effects may be modest for youth mentoring programmes in general (for example Hedges' *g* = 0.21; both in Raposa et al. [52] and DuBois et al. [54]), the effect sizes of programmes which have a clear targeted population and are more problem-specific (such as the one we studied) tend to be higher, and double those of programmes with non-specific approaches [62,86]. The evidence from this study supports this argument because the effect sizes for the values studied are well above 0.50.

More specifically, with unaccompanied migrant minors, other inquiries have stressed that mentoring encourages young migrants' hope and feeling of belonging [60], as well as perceptions of the social support they have in the host culture [59]. This study further contributes to this field by shedding some light on the effects on unaccompanied youth once they turn 18, considering that our quantitative discoveries showed large effect sizes ('d' around 0.8) for the mentoring group on resilience (0.7), educational aspirations (0.86), and educational expectations (0.86), or medium effect sizes ('d' around 0.5) for self-esteem (0.54) and youth hope (0.45). However, we could not identify significant differences in psychological distress, probably because this variable needs a more professionalised intervention to show significant changes.

Our qualitative findings showed that the mentor's availability to be present in complex situations in which youths are involved during the transition to adulthood and becoming settled explains the differences in the quantitative results between the treatment and control groups. The mentoring relationship makes it easier for the young people to share feelings that undermine their self-esteem, which can help them to create a more positive impression of themselves thanks to the conversations with the mentors.

Furthermore, mentoring relationships help youths to assess their needs by becoming an important ecological resource for their resilience and strength [87]. Mentoring is an opportunity for them to share ideas about their own trajectory with people who can guide them in making decisions or even to improve individual and relational resources to deal with stressful and complex events. In the same way, mentors promote a more positive vision in young people about their plans, since the messages of being patient and encouraging help the mentees to be more hopeful about their future. Therefore, all of this social support also promotes higher educational expectations and aspirations, since this psychological well-being makes it easier for them to have a positive impression about what they can achieve in their lives. Furthermore, mentors establish conversations about how to continue with their educational path, being guided by a person who knows how the formal educational system works and who can help to specify their self-defined educational plans.

We can therefore see how mentors are able to provide a wide range of types of support, thanks to an appropriate orientation by the programme in the goals to be addressed with the young person. The mentoring practitioners that monitor each relationship knew how to work individually with the young person and with the mentor regarding the goals that were proposed in the relationship, which bore fruit in the different realities of each one. Those young people who needed to be introduced into new environments or to solve certain procedures were provided with instrumental support, such as concrete or companionship support. The young people who needed certain recommendations to continue on their educational path or who needed to hear suggestions from somebody with more experience than them received advice support. Additionally, those who needed someone to understand or value them in difficult moments were provided with emotional or esteem support. In addition, it is important to emphasise that this emotional support was fairly common in all the mentoring relationships.

We also highlight how the mentoring programme supervises the mentors while the mentoring relationship lasts. An important element for the mentors was the training and the issues addressed therein. They emphasised that it was useful for their work as mentors to receive information about the socio-legal situation of the youths, as well as the ability of the programme to make them aware of the difficulties they may encounter during the relationship. They also highlighted as very positive the accessibility they had to the mentoring programme practitioners throughout the relationship, since they could resolve doubts and concerns in a very direct and simple way. This made it easier for the mentors to better assess the type of support they were giving the mentees and to better understand where this support should be focused. We believe that this is a relevant finding for determining how and why mentoring interventions with unaccompanied youths can be effective in providing new support networks. We therefore suggest that the results in terms of psychological well-being and educational futures need to be contextualised within these elements highlighted by the programme mentors (a well-established training and a supervision or monitoring that guides the mentors with their doubts).

In contrast, the interviews with the non-mentored youths showed an absence of adults responding to their emotional needs. Youth workers are present to provide types of support that are very focused on specific problems, but they are not present in some circumstances in which youths need emotional support. This is something that we can observe in the quotes of the young people of the control group when they explain that they have to deal with many of their problems alone because they do not have anybody to count on, or when they explain that they sometimes do not know very well who to talk to about their problems. Youth workers can solve some of the young people's difficulties, but rather are mostly focused on specific needs related to their residence or work permits and on the search for courses that guarantee them a quick job placement. This lack of support promotes the feelings of isolation and loneliness that were evident during the interviews, which makes it difficult for youths to develop positive self-esteem for use in their daily lives, to be more resilient with complex situations, or to have hope in a promising future. Moreover, they also show the existing and absent dialogues unaccompanied youth have with their caregivers, and how the existing social categorisation and expectations of them may be challenged with a more holistic assessment connected to their hopes and perspective.

#### **6. Limitations and Future Research**

This research is not devoid of limitations. It is relevant to highlight that those who participated in the fieldwork are youth enrolled in the Catalan residential programme for former youth in care. They do not represent all unaccompanied youth because a relatively high number of unaccompanied youths are not enrolled in that programme due to the few available places. Unfortunately, a significant number of them also become irregular when they turn 18 because their residence permits were either not applied for or not renewed by the relevant entity. Nor could we access as many female participants as we would have liked because of the lack of girls in the *Catalan Federation of Residence Care Organisations*. Furthermore, there are fewer unaccompanied girls that migrate, and those that accomplished their migration journey suffer other aggregated vulnerabilities that complicate access to them. For these reasons, we cannot have an accurate vision of youth needs and difficulties disaggregated by gender.

Another limitation of this longitudinal research is the number of study participants and the difficulty in carrying out a follow-up of such a vulnerable population. The small size of our sample also limited the power of quantitative statistical analyses. Sample size may have limited the possibility of reaching significance in some of the findings obtained in this study, especially with repeated measures ANOVAs. Specifically, although we observed a statistically significant increase in self-esteem and resilience in the mentoring group and no such change in the control group, we did not find significant interaction effects with these variables. This suggests that this change could be still due to some external factors such as length of residence or housing. The legal situation of the young people can be very varied. There are young people who quickly receive a job offer and process a work permit, others can spend months waiting for the resolution of their residence permit, others have received the residency permit shortly before entering the transition to adulthood programme, and there are those whose permit has expired and have to renew it. All of these situations probably have a different impact on the psychological well-being of the youths, and it is very difficult to control them. Similarly, the length of time spent in the flats of the transition to adulthood programme can be an external factor that is difficult to control. There can be young people that are starting their stay in the flat, others who are ending it, and also within this latter group there will be differences between those who have found another housing resource for when they turn 21, those that have obtained a job offer and will now be able to live independently, and those faced with the possibility of being left without housing and cannot afford to rent a room for themselves.

Nevertheless, one needs to consider the reality of mentoring programmes for unaccompanied migrant youths: they usually involve a smaller number of youths, and thus, it is difficult to count on more robust samples. It is also important to highlight that we did observe statistically significant effects even with a limited sample with simpler statistical procedures (paired samples *t* tests) in all except for one outcome (psychological distress), and thus, it is reasonable to assume that these effects would have held with a larger sample. Our study should also be replicated with more reliable measures. Several instruments in our study showed a relatively low reliability, which might have been due to language difficulties among some participants. Thus, future research should ensure participants the possibility to respond to measures in their native language. Finally, our aim was not to provide outcomes to generalise over other contexts. Rather, we aimed to show how social mentoring interventions have relevant implications for the social inclusion and well-being of unaccompanied migrant youths.

Finally, we would like to highlight some recommendations for future research aiming to improve the well-being and health of unaccompanied youths in their coming of age. First, longitudinal studies with follow-up measurements need to be conducted in order to test the long-term effects of these mentoring programmes. In this work, we have identified significant effects of involvement in the programme on these young men's mental health and educational outcomes. However, future research is needed to determine whether these effects would continue, increase, or decrease over time, and whether mentoring relationships can last beyond the time stipulated by the programme. Secondly, future studies should aim to replicate the results obtained in this research in a larger sample of unaccompanied migrant youths, and to further disentangle the complexities of their support networks and the implications they have for their well-being and the construction of these young individuals' life trajectories. Finally, given that gender differences could not be explored in this research due to the absence of a necessary number of unaccompanied girls among the participants, there is also a pressing need to delve into the possible differential effects of social mentoring programmes among boys and girls.

We also consider that the findings from this research have relevant political and social implications for the social inclusion of unaccompanied youths. Our results speak to the lives of thousands of migrant youths who face the challenge of migrating to Europe on their own and lacking social support in this new context. Our findings suggest the benefits of mentoring programmes for their settlement, resilience, and well-being, and there is a pressing need to invest more public funding into fostering their social inclusion and a safer transition to adulthood. It is worth noticing that new approaches to youth mentoring (such as youth-initiated mentoring, mentioned earlier) are difficult to implement with unaccompanied youths due to the lack of pre-existing networks of support, family ties, or informal mentors in this new context. Thus, this research stresses that some approaches to mentoring, such as the one analysed, which also aims to increase the availability of caring adults for migrant youth, are critical and favour factors that promote well-being among unaccompanied migrant youths.

Moreover, it is also important to highlight that mentoring interventions also need to go hand in hand with structural changes on immigration policy in order to favour access to citizenship and avoid transitions to "illegality" when the youths officially become adults [5]. Further, interventions need to go beyond the provision of basic assistance and protection. It is necessary, as Chase [88] suggests, to offer these young people supportive relationships so that they can build their most immediate future based on fulfilling their capabilities and well-being.

**Author Contributions:** Conceptualization, X.A. and Ò.P.-F.; methodology, M.B. and Ò.P.-F.; software, Ò.P.-F. and X.A.; validation, X.A., Ò.P.-F. and M.B.; formal analysis, M.B. and X.A.; investigation, X.A.; resources, Ò.P.-F.; data curation, M.B and X.A.; writing—original draft preparation, X.A., Ò.P.- F. and M.B.; writing—review and editing, X.A.; visualization, X.A.; supervision, Ò.P.-F.; project

administration, Ò.P.-F.; funding acquisition, Ò.P.-F. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This research was funded by the RECERCAIXA research fund (Recercaixa 2018–2021 UdG).

**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 (6 April 2018).

**Informed Consent Statement:** Informed consent was gathered from all youths. In a few cases, those who were 17 at the moment of pre-assessment (Time 1), we also asked for consent from their legal tutors (Catalan Government Agency).

**Data Availability Statement:** The data presented in this study are openly available in Harvard Dataserve repository at https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/WJFK4O (accessed on 13 May 2021).

**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.

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

#### **References**

