Document Type
Article
Abstract
Using youth mentors to deliver evidence-based psychosocial services has been proposed to increase the reach of treatments, in part given the affordability and ubiquity of mentors in youth settings. Further, tests of mentor-delivered motivational interviewing (MI) have shown increases in youth mentees' academic performance and wellbeing. Yet, traditional methods of training mentors to use MI can be costly and time-consuming. Previous work has suggested the value of asynchronous, brief, just-in-time training (JITT) to help offset these challenges; however, MI JITT for mentors has not yet been formally evaluated. As such, here, we report on a preliminary study of MI JITT videos for youth mentors. Mentors in the program were randomly assigned to training-as-usual or training-as-usual plus JITT. MI attitudes, knowledge, and skills were measured via self-report pre- and post-intervention. Results indicate that assignment to the JITT video condition was associated with significantly improved reflection skills. Effect size analyses also suggest moderate improvements in understanding MI mechanisms and theory, and in other MI skills (e.g., asking open-ended questions). Mentors found the JITT videos acceptable and usable and reported understanding their content. The article concludes with a discussion of considerations for future research and implementation.
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
Publication Info
Published in American Journal of Community Psychology, 2025.
Rights
© 2025 The Author(s). American Journal of Community Psychology published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society for Community Research and Action. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.
APA Citation
Hart, M. J., McQuillin, S. D., Iachini, A., Cooper, D. K., & Weist, M. D. (2025). The efficacy and usability of motivational interviewing just‐in‐time trainings for youth mentors. American Journal of Community Psychology..https://doi.org/10.1002/ajcp.12804