Cultural mentoring in out-of-home care: enhancing knowledge, connections, and outcomes for children and adult stakeholders

Cultural mentoring has been recognised in research as a valuable mechanism for enhancing knowledge, strengthening connections, and improving support for children at risk of cultural disconnection. However, there has been limited focus on applying its usefulness in supporting positive outcomes for children from culturally diverse backgrounds living in out-of-home care. Reporting on findings from qualitative interviews and focus groups, this paper examined the perspectives of key stakeholders: children from culturally diverse backgrounds and the adults who care for them, such as birth parents, carers and caseworkers. A grounded theory approach supported the identification of divergent yet interconnected pathways to cultural mentoring for child and adult stakeholders. Our findings supported the development of a Culturally Meaningful Mentoring (C2M) model. The model shows each cultural mentoring pathway as unique in its context, approach, needs, and outcomes. While the adult stakeholder pathway leveraged cultural mentoring to develop skills for engaging meaningfully across diverse social and cultural contexts, the child stakeholder pathway potentially led to the shaping of personal cultural identities. This paper discusses the potential of the C2M model to redefine how cultural mentoring is utilised for child and adult stakeholders involved in the out-of-home care system.