Opening Up: self-disclosure in youth mentoring relationships

Hilary Dutton, University of Canterbury

This workshop will explore the presence and effect of self-disclosure in developing helping relationships between adults and young people. Self-disclosure is well-established as an important contributor to relationship development in many contexts, but there is little evidence of this connection in youth-adult helping relationships. Findings will be presented from observational research conducted with youth mentoring pairs about how self-disclosure occurs when mentors and mentees converse with one another. Using exemplars from the interactions, this session will illustrate how mentors—and other adults who work with young people—may use self-disclosure to foster an interpersonal connection with mentees and provide evidence of the benefits of self-disclosure for relationship building.