Stocking the Pond: Empowering Young Women to Recruit Social Capital Through Technology-Enabled Flash Mentoring
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Young women from historically marginalized backgrounds face significant barriers to accessing the professional guidance and social capital necessary for career advancement. To address this problem, a flash mentoring digital tool was developed to expand underrepresented young women’s access to time-limited guidance from pre-screened professional women within Step Up Women’s Network, a mentorship nonprofit program. This community-based program evaluation used a user-centered design approach to develop and refine the platform. In-person workshops and informal group discussion sessions with young Step Up women aged 18 to 29 provided feedback on networking approaches and mentorship needs, which informed the platform design. A total of 285 female mentors and 363 female mentees downloaded and engaged with the platform over two years. Implementation metrics included 5008 messages exchanged with 2528 sent by mentees, 316 meetings held, and high usage of goal-setting features with 1445 goals set and check-ins with 72 percent of mentees. Evaluation findings suggested that the intervention was acceptable and feasible, fostering new, short-term supportive relationships within Step Up Women’s Network. Although additional evaluation with rigorous outcome measures is needed, this program evaluation highlights the potential of a scalable intervention for Step Up Women’s Network that extends the framework of youth-initiated mentoring interventions, which have shown considerable promise in recent years.
Source: Youth
DOI: 10.3390/youth6010035
Authors: Jean E. Rhodes, Alexandra Werntz, Megyn Jasman, Delores Druilhet Morton
Institution: University of Massachusetts Boston
Language: English
Subfield: Social Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $1,207
OpenAlex ID: W7135083745