Paving the Way to Work: A Guide to Career-Focused Mentoring

Introduction

The creation of the Mentoring Guide is rooted in the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Disability Employment Policy’s (ODEP) charge to find and promote the most effective research-based policies and practices to improve transition outcomes for youth with disabilities. Mentoring is recognized as one of the most important strategies for assisting youth in making a positive transition into adulthood. Both caring adults and peers may play a key role in mentoring. In response to the under-representation of youth with disabilities in most youth development programs, ODEP, in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Labor’s Center for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, launched an initiative to promote mentoring for youth with disabilities in 2004.

Mentoring is recognized as one of the most important strategies for assisting youth in making a positive transition into adulthood. Despite all of the information available on mentoring, there is very little about mentoring youth with disabilities or about career-focused mentoring of older youth. This Guide was developed by the National Collaborative on Workforce and Disability for Youth (NCWD/Youth) specifically to address the needs of youth with disabilities during their transition from school to work.

This Guide is intended for individuals designing mentoring programs for youth, including youth with disabilities, in the transition phase to adulthood.

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Download the entire Paving the Way to Work: A Guide to Career-Focused Mentoring* (124 pages/600KB) or read the guide in MS Word (170 pages/1.3MB).
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Download Sections & Forms

Each of the seven chapters and the appendices can be separately downloaded below in PDF or MS Word. Also available individually are the cover letter and introduction, and the disclosure glossary.

Sections

• Cover, Table of Contents, Introduction, Suggestions for Use
  View cover & table of contents in PDF (8 pages) or view cover & table of contents in MS Word (9 pages)
  
• Chapter 1: An Overview of Career Focused Mentoring Programs
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• Chapter 2: A Developmental Context and the Role of Mentoring
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• Chapter 3: The Disabilities Context Weighing the Advantages and Disadvantages of Disclosure
  View Chapter 3 in PDF (16 pages) or view Chapter 3 in MS Word (23 pages)
  
• Chapter 4: Mentoring Settings and Approaches
  View Chapter 4 in PDF (18 pages) or view Chapter 4 in MS Word (29 pages)
  
• Chapter 5: Operating Mentoring Programs
  View Chapter 5 in PDF (24 pages) or view Chapter 5 in MS Word (32 pages)
  
• Chapter 6: Useful Program Evaluation
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• Chapter 7: Marketing a Mentoring Program
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• Appendices
  View the appendices in PDF (16 pages) or view the appendices in MS Word (21 pages)

Order this Guide

This guide is in limited supply. NCWD/Youth publications can be downloaded for free from this website. Multiple copies can be purchased by contacting the Collaborative at publications@ncwd-youth.info.