Mentoring: Can you get too much of a ‘good thing’? Proposing enhancements to the ‘effectiveness framework’ the England and Wales Prison and Probation Service
| Author | Kevin Wong,Rachel Horan |
| Published date | 01 December 2021 |
| Date | 01 December 2021 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/20662203211024105 |
| Subject Matter | Original Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/20662203211024105
European Journal of Probation
© The Author(s) 2021
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DOI: 10.1177/20662203211024105
journals.sagepub.com/home/ejp
Mentoring: Can you get
too much of a ‘good thing’?
Proposing enhancements to
the ‘effectiveness framework’
the England and Wales Prison
and Probation Service
Kevin Wong
Manchester Metropolitan University, UK
Rachel Horan
The Averment Group, UK
Abstract
Opt-in, open-ended mentoring for people with convictions, allowing them to dip in and
out of services without sanction arguably offers a service configuration to match the
paradigm of the zig-zag, nomadic desistance journey. Balancing supporting individual’s
agency while avoiding fostering dependency is tricky. What are the conditions which
support the former and avoid the latter? We aim to answer this question by drawing
on the lived experience of mentees and mentors collected during the evaluation of a
mentoring scheme in England. We consider whether mentoring is unequivocally a ‘good
thing’. Despite its ubiquity, the evidence for its effectiveness is mixed. We suggest that
it is possible to get too much mentoring, and advance the evidence base in the United
Kingdom and internationally in other jurisdictions by proposing enhancements to the
‘effectiveness framework’ set out by the prison and probation service in England and
Wales.
Keywords
Agency, dependency, effectiveness framework, mentoring
Corresponding author:
Kevin Wong, Policy Evaluation and Research Unit, Department of Sociology, Manchester Metropolitan
University, Geoffrey Manton Building, Rosamund Street West, Manchester M15 6HB, UK.
Email: kevin.wong@mmu.ac.uk
1024105EJP0010.1177/20662203211024105European Journal of ProbationWong and Horan
2021
Original Article
2021, Vol. 13(3) 207 –225
208 European Journal of Probation 13(3)
2 European Journal of Probation 00(0)
Introduction
Mentoring has long featured as policy and practice for people with convictions in the
United Kingdom and other jurisdictions. These include the volunteering and mentoring
programme in England and Wales (Wadia and Parkinson, 2015), support for prison
leavers in Wales (Maguire et al., 2010), social support for sexual offenders in Canada
(Wilson et al., 2009) and post-release mentoring for women in Australia (Brown and
Ross, 2010). The Probation Reform Programme in England and Wales1 continues this
by specifying ‘. . . locally sourced mentoring and advocacy to those most in need . . .
enabling a whole system response to desistance’ (Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation
Service (HMPPS), 2020: 33). Taylor et al.’s (2013) rapid evidence assessment (REA) of
intermediate outcomes for mentoring interventions noted considerable variation in their
aims, content and the nature of the mentor–mentee relationship. The mentoring inter-
vention examined here is opt-in; and open-ended with individuals engaging and disen-
gaging without sanction; arguably offering a service configuration to match the zig-zag
desistance journey (Glaser, 1964) or rhizomatic understanding of a desister as a ‘nomad’
(Phillips, 2017). As noted by Healy (2013), to travel this desistance journey, an indi-
vidual needs to grow and develop their agency and identity capital, but needs support to
do so successfully. In this article, we argue that finding the right balance in the mentee–
mentor relationship between enabling agency and developing capital, while avoiding
dependency is tricky. We ask is it possible to receive too much mentoring? Can you get
too much of a ‘good thing’? Or is the issue one of timing – the wrong type of support at
the wrong time? We aim to answer these questions by drawing on the lived experience
of adult mentees and mentors through re-analysis of qualitative data collected during
the evaluation of a scheme in England.
We commence by examining the nature and purpose(s) of mentoring including the
extent to which engendered agency features. We explore agency and dependency within
the rehabilitative literature; and turn to therapy research to understand how dependency
might occur. We describe the mentoring scheme in this study; our methodology and its
limitations. We present the findings and discuss the implications for policy and practice
in the United Kingdom and other jurisdictions proposing enhancements to the HMPPS
(2019) framework/guidance for effective mentoring; using engagement and disengage-
ment as proxy measures of desistance; consider the optimal duration of mentoring and its
resourcing; and how these can be tested through further research.
Purpose of mentoring
Mentoring has been defined as a: ‘. . . one-to-one non-judgemental relationship. An indi-
vidual (mentor) gives time to support and encourage another (mentee)’ (HMPPS, 2019).
Elsewhere, ‘a voluntary relationship of engagement, encouragement and trust’ (Aitken,
2014: 11) That mentoring is ‘a fuzzy concept which is in fashion but short of facts’,
Aitken (2014: 9) alludes to it’s paradox within criminal justice in the United Kingdom
and other jurisdictions. Generally viewed as a ‘good thing’ by policy makers and practi-
tioners, it has been an adjunct to formal probation – additional support for adults on
intensive community orders (Wong et al., 2012); managing the transition from prison to
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