Mentoring program reduces violence, substance use in disadvantaged youth over 4 years

A 4-year (48-month) randomized controlled trial evaluated the Big Brothers Big Sisters of America Community-Based Mentoring (CBM) program in 1353 disadvantaged youth aged 10 and older in a US community setting. The comparator was not reported in the abstract. The primary outcomes were violence-related delinquent behavior, recurring substance use, property-related delinquent behavior, and arrest.

After 4 years, the treatment group showed significantly lower rates of violence-related delinquent behavior and significantly lower rates of recurring substance use compared to the control group. Rates of property-related delinquent behavior and arrest were nonsignificantly lower in the treatment group. For secondary outcomes—including risk factors for problem behavior, personal resources, mental health, academic performance, and caregiver parenting behavior—the study reported significant effects favoring the treatment group on multiple measures, with nearly all nonsignificant effects also trending in that direction.

Safety and tolerability data were not reported in the abstract. Key limitations include the lack of reported effect sizes, absolute numbers, and confidence intervals for all outcomes, which prevents assessment of the clinical magnitude of benefits. The abstract also notes caution regarding generalizability beyond disadvantaged youth in this specific US community mentoring context and long-term effects beyond 4 years. While the RCT design supports causal inference within the study, the missing quantitative data limits precise clinical interpretation.