Program staff perspectives on implementing youth-initiated mentoring with systems-involved youth.

Youth-initiated mentoring (YIM) is an approach to mentor recruitment that represents a significant departure from how formal mentoring typically has been conceptualized and carried out, most notably by having youth identify their own mentors. Despite enthusiasm for YIM, implementation can require significant shifts in program practices. Given the limited resources with which most mentoring programs have to work, it is important to discern staff investment in YIM and what it takes for programs to implement this approach. This study explored YIM implementation at the organizational level through interviews with mentoring program staff (n = 11) and addressed motivations of mentoring program staff to implement YIM, how their programs implemented this approach, and their perceptions of the facilitators and barriers to successful YIM implementation.