In plain language
Youth mentoring programs give disadvantaged children friendship, role models, and a window into how other families live. But as the number of children needing mentors grows, programs struggle to recruit enough adult volunteers. This study asked three practical questions about the long-running Australian “Aunties & Uncles” mentoring program: how many people have even heard of it, how many would consider becoming a mentor, and whether the “would consider it” group is psychologically different from everyone else.
The team surveyed a nationally representative sample of 1,098 Australian adults (aged 18–65), measuring awareness of the program, willingness to mentor, demographics, and a range of psychological characteristics including hope, problem-solving orientation, empathy, social support, and life satisfaction.
Awareness was strikingly low — 86% of people had never heard of the program — yet nearly half (47%) said they would consider becoming a mentor. Potential mentors had a distinct profile: they were younger, higher in hope and cognitive empathy, reported more social support and life satisfaction, and were more interested in foster caring. This matters because it shows there is a large untapped pool of willing volunteers, and it gives mentoring programs concrete guidance for designing targeted marketing campaigns to reach them.
Key findings
- 86% of a nationally representative sample of 1,098 Australian adults had never heard of the Aunties & Uncles youth mentoring program, indicating very low base awareness.
- Despite low awareness, 47% of respondents said they would consider becoming a youth mentor in the future — a substantial untapped recruitment pool.
- People who would consider mentoring were significantly younger and reported greater social support, life satisfaction, and perceived wealth than those who would not.
- Potential mentors scored significantly higher on hope (both pathways and agency) and on cognitive and total empathy.
- A logistic regression correctly classified 80.8% of respondents: younger age, greater interest in foster caring, requesting foster-care information, and higher cognitive empathy each significantly predicted willingness to mentor.
- Willingness to consider more extended forms of foster care was markedly higher among potential mentors, suggesting mentoring may serve as an entry point to foster caring.
How to cite
APA
Randle, M., Miller, L., Ciarrochi, J., & Dolnicar, S. (2014). A psychological profile of potential youth mentor volunteers. Journal of Community Psychology, 42(3), 338–351. https://doi.org/10.1002/jcop.21613
BibTeX
@article{randle2014psychological,
author = {Randle, Melanie and Miller, Leonie and Ciarrochi, Joseph and Dolnicar, Sara},
title = {A psychological profile of potential youth mentor volunteers},
journal = {Journal of Community Psychology},
year = {2014},
volume = {42},
number = {3},
pages = {338--351},
doi = {10.1002/jcop.21613}
}
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- All publications by Joseph Ciarrochi (searchable, with free PDFs)
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Author: Joseph Ciarrochi (ORCID 0000-0003-0471-8100). Free copy hosted with permission for scholarly use. Please cite the published version via the DOI above.