Our Team

Renée Spencer, EdD, LICSW, is a Professor at the Boston University School of Social Work. She specializes in the study of relational processes at work in youth mentoring and has conducted in-depth examinations of the development of youth mentoring relationships to identify what promotes close and enduring relationships and how such relationships can support positive youth development. She has also studied innovative approaches to mentoring, such as youth-initiated mentoring, and the tailoring of programs to meet the needs of special populations of young people, including youth in foster care and military-connected youth. Her work has been funded by the William T. Grant Foundation and the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), and the U. S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences (IES).