"I really wanted her to have a Big Sister": Caregiver perspectives on mentoring for early adolescent girls.

Formal youth mentoring programs tend to focus on the mentor-mentee dyad as the primary relationship cultivated and supported. The interests and preferences of the parent or caregiver in the mentoring relationship may receive little attention. In this study, semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with primary caregivers (N=20) of early adolescent girls participating in a Big Brothers Big Sisters community-based mentoring program to explore reasons why they wanted mentors for their daughters. Thematic analysis revealed that caregivers expected mentors to support their daughters as trusted companions, confidants, and conduits to opportunities and services. In addition, caregivers noted ways in which mentoring offered them respite and reinforced their parenting. The findings highlight the potential value of assessing caregiver perspectives and priorities so that program staff and mentors can partner more effectively with youth and families for successful mentoring experiences.

Physical dating violence, sexual violence, and unwanted pursuit victimization: a comparison of incidence rates among sexual-minority and heterosexual college students.

The purpose of this study was to estimate the 6-month incidence rates of sexual assault, physical dating violence (DV), and unwanted pursuit (e.g., stalking) victimization among sexual-minority (i.e., individuals with any same-sex sexual experiences) college students with comparison data from non-sexual-minority (i.e., individuals with only heterosexual sexual experiences) college students. Participants (N = 6,030) were primarily Caucasian (92.7%) and non-sexual-minority (82.3%). Compared with non-sexual-minority students (N-SMS; n = 4,961), sexual-minority students (SMS; n = 1,069) reported significantly higher 6-month incidence rates of physical DV (SMS: 30.3%; N-SMS: 18.5%), sexual assault (SMS: 24.3%; N-SMS: 11.0%), and unwanted pursuit (SMS: 53.1%; N-SMS: 36.0%) victimization. We also explored the moderating role of gender and found that female SMS reported significantly higher rates of physical DV than female N-SMS, whereas male SMS and male N-SMS reported similar rates of physical DV. Gender did not moderate the relationship between sexual-minority status and victimization experiences for either unwanted pursuit or sexual victimization. These findings underscore the alarmingly high rates of interpersonal victimization among SMS and the critical need for research to better understand the explanatory factors that place SMS at increased risk for interpersonal victimization.