Building young men: a dynamic group mentoring program at the intersection of group work, mentoring, adolescence, and sport

ABSTRACT

The Building Young Men group mentoring program is a new and innovative youth intervention program located in the outer suburbs of Sydney, Australia. Funded and facilitated by a professional sporting organization, the program incorporates the practices of group work, youth work, and mentoring to support adolescent males in exploring safe and healthy transitions into adulthood. The authors have offered the term “Dynamic Group Mentoring,” to describe the experience at the intersection of the interventions of group work, youth work, and mentoring as practiced in the Building Young Men program. This model of group mentoring offers significant positive outcomes for adolescent male participants, particularly in supporting the development of confidence, trust, agency, and social capital in their lives.

KEYWORDS:

• Group work
• mentoring
• group work and sports
• masculinity
• male adolescents

To fully appreciate the benefit of the innovative Dynamic Group Mentoring model utilized with young males in a sports organization, it is important to chart a number of intersecting histories that have contributed to the development of the model: those of group work, the sport organization (Penrith Panthers), mentoring, and young males themselves. The origins are not straightforward, as shown in Figure 1 below, but taken together they provide insight into a unique group work approach that facilitates the transition of young males into adults.

Figure 1. Intersecting histories of a group work program.

History of group work in Australia

Tracking the origins of group work with young males in Australia is a difficult endeavor. There is no written history and, as Benjamin et al. (2020, p. 39) point out, “the sources for documenting it are scattered.” Further, the history that is documented is not necessarily something about which to be proud. Some dimensions that are known about the history of group work in Australia are typified in this article as knowledge ancestors, antecedent values, and professional origins.

Knowledge ancestors

Australia is home to the oldest continuous civilization on earth. Our Indigenous nations have functioned as collectivist societies for over 60,000 years. All of Indigenous life was done in groups, including the reintegration into community after the individualized rite of passage (naively referred to in English as “walkabout”). These Indigenous ways of knowing, being, and doing have extreme value to the operation of groups as they have come to be practiced within the social work field. In terms of working with young males, there is a popular discourse around rites of passage that has been embraced by the Building Young Men (BYM) program, although how applicable this practice can be to a contemporary non-Indigenous cohort is contested.

In the more recent era, O’Sullivan et al. (2015) summarize how international theoretical development came to be picked up in Australia. Early 20th century work in psychodrama, Bion’s (French & Simpson, 2015) group-based support of returned soldiers, and Lewin’s (1947) T-Groups and foundations in Gestalt began to occupy some practitioner space in the late 1960s. Yalom’s (1980) application of therapeutic group work, as well as the emergence of Encounter Groups, became stronger in the 1970s and 1980s. Benjamin et al. (2020) acknowledged that we owe much in Australia to such North American writers as there has been no early local tradition of small group research. More recently, Shulman’s (2011) expansion of a mutual aid model (or reciprocal model) gained currency in Australia from the 1990s, although Benjamin et al. (2020, p. 64) also remind us that “you cannot assume that group work involves just one technique or that it is based on one set of political or moral objectives.”

Antecedent values

The moral dimension has been a crucial part of the origin of group work in Australia and belies a set of values that group workers would not necessarily hold today. For example, in the late nineteenth century, churches and charities undertook voluntary work with small groups of young people for the purpose of morally uplifting education (Levine & Levine, 1992). This work was done in the main by upper-middle class volunteers who believed that they knew what was best for the young and poor. This class arrogance notwithstanding, a practice of adult men working with younger men in groups was established.

Apart from these endeavors, organizations such as the YMCA and the Boy Scouts influenced the way in which young males have been engaged in groups. Emerging in the early 1900s, these organizations were pre-occupied with “keeping boys off the streets” through sport, recreation, drama, music, reading, and educational programs. Still holding to a moralistic framework, they did build up a foundation of working with young people in groups. Benjamin et al. (2020) affirmed that there are still some elements of these antecedent values in modern group work practice with young males, but the shape of group work has changed as more global research knowledge has become available about the positive effect of groups.

The values and knowledge bases that are part of the origin story of the Dynamic Group Mentoring model also have a connection to the development of the social work and youth work professions in Australia and the growing role that group work has played in professional practice.

Professional origins and group work

Mendes (2005) charted a brief history of social work in Australia, but very little attention was given to groups, other than a lament by Lawrence (1965) that more attention in social work education needed to be given to a variety of methods including group work. Arguably, this gap in curriculum still exists, although there has not yet been an attempt to establish the extent of social work programs that offer distinct group work subjects. It has been in practice arenas that group work with young people has gained momentum. Benjamin et al. (2020) noted that group work as a component of youth work was part of an agenda to formalize the training of youth workers, where previously its main field had been in recreation and churches, often done by untrained workers or former school teachers. Within social work, group work was identified as a recognized practice method from the 1980s and is acknowledged in the Australian Association of Social Workers (2013, 2022).

These historical dimensions of group work in Australia find a pragmatic compatibility with a novel approach to engaging with young males in Dynamic Group Mentoring through a sporting organization, and it is therefore important to contextualize group work within the organization called Panthers on the Prowl.

History of the panthers on the prowl community development organization

Operating for over 15 years, the Panthers on the Prowl (POTP) Community Development Foundation has become a useful entity through which the Panthers Rugby League Club engages with local community members away from the football field, while continuing to build support for the team, the club, and the organization itself. The Building Young Men (BYM) program has become a high priority for POTP, attracting strong support from the Executive Board, the Club’s financial partners, and local families, businesses, and agencies. The club supports not only its own financial and brand interests and those of the professional sportspeople linked with the club, but also the local community at a welfare and development level.

The Penrith Panthers have a long history of grassroots community engagement. In recent years, growth and expansion of the club through its business interests and its success on the sporting field has led to an increase in support from both community and corporate sources. Community development is built into the core of the business structure and tied to the club’s economic performance and growth. There is a pride in looking back on “how far they’ve come,” and thus there remains a commitment to honoring and “giving back” to the community that has supported the club from the very beginning. One of the ways in which the POTP has sought to fulfil that promise is through a group mentoring program for young males.

Building young men group mentoring program

In March 2016, a unique community development opportunity arose in Western Sydney. A small group of community business leaders, Penrith residents, local schoolteachers, and club employees united in an effort to provide a mentoring program for twelve male students enrolled in Year 10 at a local high school. The program was designed and implemented by the Building Young Men Project Development Team under the auspices of POTP.

The Building Young Men (BYM) project is a twenty-week youth mentoring program, with group sessions that happen weekly and last two to three hours at a time. The primary aim of the sessions is to help adolescent boys from the local community, including youth from significantly difficult life circumstances, to manage and enjoy their experience of adolescence, as well as to continue to build skills and coping strategies for the future. BYM attempts this through a model called Dynamic Group Mentoring with the direction and support of older male mentors employed by POTP, as well as volunteer business and community leaders.

Every week the participants of the program eat a meal together, after which they move into a group mentoring circle to spend time discussing themes related to the messages of “change,” “growing up,” and “becoming a man.” These themes were developed by key members of the BYM Program Development Team. The mentoring circle is led on a week-to-week basis by a BYM group facilitator. As part of these sessions, and to assist with the discussion, the adolescent mentees and adult mentors attempt to complete a range of diverse physical, emotional, and mental challenges; they are also assigned homework tasks and activities, some of which included trust exercises, personal storytelling, physical games and sports, and journaling. Although sport plays the role of catalyst or conduit for participation for some of the participants, neither the BYM project developers nor the participants need necessarily to be interested in any sport-related aspects of the program, and sporting outcomes are not the program’s aim.

With an historical perspective on group work contextualized in the delivery of a group program for young males by a sporting organization, it is crucial to understand the parallel origin and development of ideas around mentoring young males in the life stage of emerging adulthood.

Mentoring origins

The practice of mentoring is steeped in social and spiritual customs from vastly different cultures all over the world, with varying purposes, expectations, and outcomes (Chao et al., 1992, p. 619; DuBois & Karcher, 2014, p. 3). Sometimes described as an advisor or a guide, a mentor may role-model particular characteristics and oversee the transfer of some specific knowledge or experience to the mentee. The mentor may also provide support, care, or growth in professional or personal capital for the mentee (Anastasia et al., 2012, p. 38; Hartley, 2004, p. 22). As Huizing (2012, p. 28) says, “a mentoring relationship is between the mentor who is perceived to have greater relevant knowledge, wisdom, or experience and the mentee who has less of these characteristics.”

Mentoring in contemporary times is generally employed to assist in some form of psychosocial development or career development (Bozeman & Feeney, 2007, p. 722; Kram, 1983, p. 613). Schwartz and Rhodes (2016, p. 152) suggest that the most common form of mentoring is informal in nature: “The vast majority of mentoring takes place outside the realm of mentoring programs (e.g., in families, neighborhoods, schools),” However, there has been a significant rise in formal mentoring programs around the world during recent times (DuBois et al., 2002; Rhodes, 2020). Formal mentoring is generally structured in a traditional dyadic relationship which is known in the literature as a one-to-one relationship (Schwartz & Rhodes, 2016, p. 151). Formal mentoring is most often hierarchical (Dansky, 1996) but can (though less often) be lateral in nature (Eby, 1997).

The Building Young Men program is structured to include several adult mentors and several adolescent mentees in a group setting in both hierarchal (mentor to mentee, positioned above and below) and lateral (peer-to-peer, positioned side by side) relationships. This reciprocal arrangement reflects the International Association of Social Work with Groups (IASWG; 2015, pp. 4, 2B), which states that “the group consists of multiple helping relationships, so that members can help one another to achieve individual goals and pursue group goals. This is often referred to as ‘mutual aid.’”

The primary transfer of knowledge within the BYM program remains in the practice of adult mentors offering wisdom and guidance to the adolescent mentees. Peer-to-peer mentoring is manifest in the form of mutual role -modeling behaviors and attitudes among group members. Although there is not a single type or style of youth mentoring recommended or proven to be most successful within the literature, it is commonly agreed that mentoring relationships require both the mentor and mentee to conduct a caring, flexible, and trusting relationship in order to productively manage individual complexities and needs and to work toward positive outcomes for both participants (Hartley, 2004, p. 22; Komosa-Hawkins, 2010, p. 121; Lakind et al., 2014, p. 706).

Introducing group work into youth mentoring

The structure of the group in the context of mentoring in the BYM program allows the older male mentors to build relationships with multiple younger male mentees simultaneously, thus creating a diverse and dynamic network of personal connections throughout the group. The group setting becomes a “field” (Bourdieu, 1977, 1993) in which participants can structure rules and guidelines as well as practice how they would like to interact beyond the group setting. Participation in BYM provides opportunities for building a personal sense of power and shifting dispositions and deep-rooted behaviors or tendencies.

Youth groups are relatively safe sites of accountability, power, and control (Malekoff, 2004; McDermott, 2002), wherein a young person has an opportunity to practice the art of conversation, to learn how to navigate social interactions, and to experience developing, managing, and maintaining relationships (Ramey, 1993) with both peers and adults. Mills (as cited in Johnson & Johnson, 2009, p. 5) defines a group as a composition of people who come into “meaningful contact,” and Henslin et al. (2011, p. 81) define a group as “people who have something in common and who believe that what they have in common is significant.”

Individuals may join groups to find a sense of belonging or to have the opportunity to create and build new identities (Ormiston, 2016, p. 224). In groups such as sporting teams, Hall (2010, p. 180) asserts that belonging gives members feelings of acceptance, value, recognition, self-realization, and responsibility, as well as providing positive relationships and positive role models (Hall, 2010, p. 185). Malekoff (2004, p. 315) believes that a young person’s participation in an effective group may even change feelings of rejection and of “hostile and fearful avoidance by others,” and that the group experience has the power to end a cycle of social isolation. Participation in group work not only enables the group member to view the group as a form of community, but also offers the opportunity for group members to shape, model, and experience the norms and behaviors of a wider community they would like to live within (Preston-Shoot, 2007, p. 62; Ramey, 1993, p. 205).

One of the key reasons for the BYM Program Development Team’s desire to use a group work format and environment was that they believe young people need a safe space to explore and investigate what it means to be an adult by using the perspectives of several adult mentors. The group allows young people to collectively build a sense of what it means to be a contemporary man. In a group setting, mentees access multiple, diverse, and inclusive versions of manhood and build a peer network that comprised close bonds of friendship. This sense of camaraderie reproduces constructions of manhood that the young people may want to emulate, including the examples of adult mentors and those of fellow adolescent mentees. This aspect aligns with McDermott’s (2002, p. 51) view that groups are a “site of meaning construction,” where the group participants learn through uncertainty, deconstruction, possibility, and subjectivity, often resulting in opportunities for a reauthoring of their lives.

Schwartz and Rhodes (2016, p. 151) suggest that classic dyadic mentoring, or “one-to-one pairing, is a relatively inefficient way to bridge the growing gap between the number of youth who could benefit from mentor support and those who have it.” Instead, the practice of group mentoring is purposefully inclusive and provides an effective model for engagement and outcomes in youth work practice (Karcher et al., 2006; Kroll, 2016). The Dynamic Group Mentoring model fits within a broad classification of group or team mentoring but is still unique in its application. Herrera et al. (2002) suggests that team mentoring approximates a ratio of 1:4 adult-to-youth. In contrast, each BYM group ratio is closer to 3:4, with a clear stipulation that mentors are to be consistent in attending all group sessions as a united, yet diverse team (Joseph, 2021, 2022; Joseph & Hall, 2016).

Findings and discussion on the dynamic group mentoring model

For this discussion and analysis, we rely strongly on the observation notes we took throughout four years of researcher-mentor participation at BYM. These observations focus on highlighting the relationship dynamics and operations of power between mentors and mentees within each of the Dynamic Group Mentoring circles that we participated in. We also draw on the perspectives of the group members in order to emphasize their understanding and conceptualizations of their relationships, firstly to emphasize the lived experience of the BYM program, and secondly to validate the researcher observations. The Dynamic Group Mentoring model of practice requires one to understand the unique components that may lead to the operation of decentralizing knowledge and power within typical mentoring relationships and that offer a counterpoint to hegemonic ideals of masculinity, which are sometimes reproduced in mentoring practice (Joseph, 2021, 2022; Joseph & Hall, 2016).

Analysis of the Dynamic Group Mentoring model embraces Bourdieu’s notion of “field” as a tool for unpacking the complex machinations at the intersection of group work and mentoring in a football club. In this context, “field” suggests that we are all “players” who interact with one another within the social spheres in which we live and conduct our lives (Bourdieu, 1977, 1993). For Leeder and Cushion (2020, p. 4), field “incorporate[s] objective structures, positions, rituals, interests, and ways of being which are represented in the practices of the agents within that social space.”

The BYM program incorporates players from highly diverse and stratified social spheres beyond the boundaries of the BYM field. Participating adult men are diverse in terms of socio-economic and geographic provenance, political orientation, age, and ethnicity. They are positioned as knowledgeable, wise, and well-resourced to work alongside young people who are moving through a stage of life typically associated with uncertainty regarding personal life trajectories, and who are often thought of as “finding themselves” (Arnett, 2004; Kimmel, 2008). There is a purposeful contrast made between the adult mentees and the adolescent mentees, wherein the adolescent mentees are positioned as receivers of knowledge and wisdom, which the adult mentors impart. The adult mentors are positioned as benevolent volunteers seeking to change the lives of young people in their local communities. The mentees work to reproduce and emulate the examples offered by the more experienced mentors. While there is a group facilitator, there is not necessarily a structural order of formal roles within the group other than the mentor/mentee hierarchical dyad.

What makes the BYM model dynamic is not only the heterogeneity of the mentor and mentee group (excepting gender and sexuality, which have so far remained homogeneous), but also the semi-fluid structure. Mentors and mentees are not specifically paired up. Instead, the adult mentors are readily available to interact with any of the adolescent mentees at any point throughout the group sessions. Much of the criticism directed toward mentoring models throughout the literature comes from the formalized pairing of single mentors and single mentees, and opportunity for dysfunctional relationships to occur (DuBois et al., 2002; Rhodes et al., 2002).

This dynamic factor is of key importance as highlighted by the mentees, including Harry (all names of participants have been deidentified using pseudonyms to protect participants’ identities) who describes his 2018 mentorship as a varied experience where he learned “different things from different people,” including how to become “classy,” “nice,” “smart,” and “funny,” all due to his various relationships within the group. The mentees value a field that is structured to encourage them to build relationships with a diverse network of men, rather than being contained to solely one relationship, as happens in a one-to-one mentoring design. Other mentees also reported accumulating various forms of capital from their relationships with multiple mentors, as compared to a one-to-one mentoring relationship:

Because you don’t have one-to-one with anyone. You wouldn’t have that many people to go one-on-one with, like talking. You will have so many people who have more different things [than] one person. I think it will be [more] difficult to have a challenge with one person than multiple. We have over six people in this program and I think it’s more better to have more than one. When you can go from one person to another to another who have different lifestyles. I think that makes it more better – Riyad, 2017.

Riyad feels as though he has learned the ability to confidently discuss his ideas in other circles, even those that include adults. He highlights the importance of a mentoring group that is diverse in terms of different lifestyles. There is a sense of freedom and agency that he has been offered in the ability to choose which advice, instruction, education, opinion, or representation regarding manhood and masculinity that he feels is most suitable for his own purposes. Riyad highlights the personal development of confidence when interacting within adult dominated spaces. He believes that the confidence he has accumulated as he practiced group interaction with the adults in the mentoring program will transfer from the mentoring field across to his other fields. His comment is indicative of the power he has gained in fields in and beyond BYM.

From this experience, a flow-on affect follows for these mentees, one which is witnessed by parents, friends, teachers, and community members, wherein mentees who reported that they previously struggled to connect with adults and had difficulty expressing their ideas, become able to confidently interact with positions of power in social spheres where they previously struggled:

Something that’s changed for me is that I talk to my parents a lot more and something that could change – or because of this program I’ve opened up to my parents, so now on can start opening to other people as well, like my friends and that, who I don’t talk to as much about stuff like that – Jordan, 2019.

I came in expecting to mature. Not straightaway, it’s an eighteen-week program, it takes a while. But yeah, I definitely feel I’ve grown in maturity: confidence especially. I was quite timid before, but after this, I feel I can talk to anyone now, which is definitely helpful. I’ve really enjoyed my time while doing this – Casper, 2017.

It changed [me] a lot. I talk to my dad a lot now. Before, I couldn’t speak to him at all. Me and my brothers have been close. Now we’re very [much] closer and everything changed for me after these whole eight weeks – John, 2018.

What’s changed for me? I’ve got about twelve new friends I can talk to from the program. I’m counting something like that. And talking about things that are a bit tough to talk about usually has got a bit easier – Alan, 2019.

Typical mentoring interactions are often binary in structure, meaning that transferal of knowledge is given from one person and received by another person in a hand-me-down process. But with the Dynamic Group Mentoring model, multiple perspectives are made available to multiple receivers simultaneously (Altus, 2015, p. 101). Huizing (2012, p. 28) uses the term “polyad” to describe this type of mentor–mentee communication: a “relationship of more than two people in which the interactions are simultaneous and collaborative.” The polyadic group mentoring approach of BYM brings a group of adult mentors and a group of adolescent mentees together in a safe and confidential environment, where they discuss socially or personally relevant topics that simultaneously cover multiple questions, multiple perspectives, and multiple understandings. Within this space, social capital is built from having trusting relationships within an expanding network of community members outside of the mentees’ immediate families, or (often limited) circles of opportunity.

This sense of trust in the group is another key aspect of the Dynamic Group Mentoring structure. There is a clear emphasis among the mentees that trust and confidentiality are highly prized within the field and beyond. The opportunity to be accepted for “the type of person you are,” and the type of adult you would like to become, is a form of capital they feel is achievable and useful for them. Knowing that some of the most personal, compromising, uncertain, scary, fear-inducing revelations of self are willingly offered to them by their peers and a group of “powerful” men gives many of these mentees a strong sense of responsibility, ultimately leading them to feel valued and validated within the field:

Everyone had to open up and trust each other about the stuff that happened. You think everyone’s life is perfect but there’s a lot of people like my friends and they tell how their dads left them and stuff. Really, close personal stuff. Hearing all the mentors’ stories. They tried drugs or when they had underage sex and stuff like that. I always thought man, I want to join the lads or something because they look cool and stuff. Like, all these rappers and stuff. Like cigarettes, mum was like, ‘if you want one you can go get one’, and same with beers and stuff. But I really don’t want to be that person – Victor, 2019.

Trust and confidentiality are features of a mutual aid model within Shulman’s (2011, 2016) framework of reciprocity where members both receive and provide help. The mutual aid model applies to groups such as BYM that are not specifically designated as therapeutic.

We can see in Victor’s story that trust and confidentiality are forms of capital and power he prizes highly. Trust has been broken within fields he belongs to elsewhere, but it has been freely offered and proven in the BYM field. He is comparing his position in other fields and the capital those positions earn, and he feels that he wants something different. He comments on rappers, beer, cigarettes, sex, and drugs, which are all forms of symbolic and cultural capital that are highly rewarded in other fields, but within the BYM field he finds different values of confidentiality, safety, belonging, and trust. He has determined that the forms of capital (drugs, etc.) found in other fields are detrimental to his overall desired trajectory of becoming an adult and being respected, at least within the BYM field. Therefore, Victor outlines an alternate trajectory; he paints a picture of change for himself, and those who may someday be under his guidance. He sees himself as empowered to practice social mobility and move out of the fields wherein he feels dominated and feels unsafe, aiming to enter social environments that value other forms of capital. This outcome is a result of his inclusion in the BYM program: his sense that the disposition he performs across multiple fields has been transformed in a way that is meaningful to him. This experience exemplifies Hyde’s (2013, p. 44) point that in mutual aid groups, “personal narratives are often used to raise consciousness, find common ground, unite group members, and reduce feelings of isolation.”

The Dynamic Group Mentoring model reduces both the expectation of specific adult mentors being relied on to meet the specific needs of each of the adolescent mentees in the group, and the risk of poor mentor–mentee matching. It also reduces the frequency of mentees “falling through the cracks,” a common criticism of classic one-to-one mentoring models (Rhodes et al., 2002). Instead, the Dynamic Group Mentoring model allows the mentees choice in where, when, how, and from whom they seek mentoring support. This is a purposeful and explicit expectation within the BYM circles that are designed to facilitate an inclusive process of unpacking masculinity and adolescence. The dynamism of group mentoring contrasts with a top-down, dyadic, binary relationship focused on advice-giving and advice-receiving found in traditional dyadic mentoring relationships. BYM stories are multiple and subjective, they are narratives about which the narrators and the listeners can make their own meanings. There are descriptions, metaphors, parables, and morals that may be emphasized by the narrators, but perhaps not deciphered with the same meaning by the listeners. This approach flips the traditional advice-giving approach where the single older male mentor guides and advises the young male mentee in decisions relating to the mentee’s issues or needs.

There is thus a clear relational power shift within the Dynamic Group Mentoring model, the adolescent mentees being empowered to decide on their own terms what mentoring advice and support is important or effective for them. Cohen and Graybeal (2007) highlight that power-sharing within the group development process promotes collectivizing resources, which is a key feature of a mutual aid model. Further, Bergart et al. (2021), emphasize that mutual aid is both a model and a process, as is evident in the operation of Dynamic Group Mentoring. The mentees’ choice and multiplicity of mentor options, as well as the broader perspectives that come with increased mentoring voices, offer mentees opportunities for simultaneous, collaborative and multifaceted support (Huizing, 2012; Kroll, 2016).

Summary and implications

As explored in discussions offered by Haenfler (2015), Pease (2010), Hooks (2004), and Roberts (2018), and Keddie (2020) there are significant opportunities for male-only groups to intentionally form sites of resistance to the status quo of hypermasculine dominance often found within sporting organizations, along with other male dominated arenas.

Within the BYM program, an intentional connection is made by using a formal group work experience and the structuring of healthy conversations and relationships for male participants. The BYM experience speaks directly to the suggestion that male groups are capable of bonding in ways that are not derogatory of women or to males who define their gender differently (McDermott, 2002; Pease, 2010, 2012). The group format enables the mentees to reproduce diverse versions of the masculine due to the inclusion of many interpretations and examples of manhood. Diversity in mentors is encouraged by the BYM program, which seeks to be as inclusive as possible in its messages of contemporary manhood.

Key literature endorses diversity as an opportunity for boys to learn to resist the traps of hegemonic values as they transition toward adulthood (Connell, 2000; Flood, 2019; Haenfler, 2015; Hooks, 2004; Keddie, 2020; Kimmel, 2008; Pease, 2010, 2012; Roberts, 2018). There is a dynamic nature to the BYM group work format that allows adolescent and adult males of diverse ages, cultures, and socio-economic backgrounds to practice prosocial behaviors and engage in positive experiences of building strong and healthy relationships with other men and to be accountable to group members in ways that do not marginalize others but encourage change and undertake open and honest conversations together about being a man.

In summary, we have provided some of the histories and processes of interaction and relationships located at the intersection of group work, mentoring, adolescence, and a sporting organization. We have offered a perspective that suggests the Building Young Men (BYM) is introducing a unique and emerging model of group mentoring practice, which we have called Dynamic Group Mentoring. BYM encourages mentees to contribute toward developing the culture and expectations of the group and empowers them with control over much of the discussion and content covered over the period of the program. The multiple mentors selected for the BYM program offer mentees various perspectives and encourage them to interpret the topics discussed, particularly the topic of masculinity, from multiple points of view.

The BYM program utilizes the Dynamic Group Mentoring model as an alternative to the typical “banking” approach (Freire, 1970) to educating and upskilling youth. While this approach is still in its infancy, it promises to be one which resists the hegemonic values often prioritized and institutionalized in hypermasculine sporting arenas. In contrast to the one-to-one approach to mentoring, Dynamic Group Mentoring brings together multiple mentors and mentees, offering various perspectives on masculinity and transitions toward adulthood and providing choice and agency to the mentees. In this way, BYM focuses on the strengths of young people who are in an exciting period of their lives, yet who are under pressure to conform to the expectations of those in dominant positions in fields beyond BYM.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).