Voices of DePaul students

One workshop at the Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference was hosted by students from a first-year class at DePaul University. A group of about 30 freshmen was divided into teams, and each team researched a different section of Chicago using the Tutor/Mentor Program Locator and other resources at their disposal.

As they did their research they wrote blog articles to show what they were learning. The final assignment was to draw conclusions and provide recommendations for how another group of students could continue the project.

I read the blog articles and conclusions this morning. I've been posting comments and coaching the group since September 09 when the project started. The cartoon above was posted on one of the blogs.

I encourage followers of the Tutor/Mentor blog to visit and read these stories yourself. They are calling on others to be involved, to help tutor/mentor programs serve inner city youth in more places. Post your own comments and feedback to the group, on their blogs, and you can add to this understanding.

They are demonstrating a form of leadership that could be coming from youth groups in high schools and colleges all over the country. If you have a project like this going on right now, or in the future, please share your link with us, and come to a future conference to share your story.

Two Days of Network Building

Here are links to two of the keynote presentations from the Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference, held at Northwestern University last Thursday and Friday.


Thrivable Networks - building networks of purpose, by Valdis Krebs and Jean Russell.

How Business and Non Profits Can Work Together, by Timothy Hogan, Partner, Creative Director, The Royal Order of Experience Design.

These were just two of more than 30 presentations that connected more than 145 people who want to help inner city youth have brighter futures with ideas and each other. You can see the list of speakers, and attendees, at the Conference web site. Because we keep this list published, the networking started at the conference can continue on Monday, and for the next six months and following decade.

When Arne, Duncan, Secretary of Education, says "This is the time to look in our collective mirror and ask whether we like what we see or whether we can do better together." .. this is what the conference is enabling.

Now it's time for those who want to help inner city kids, but cannot be directly involved as tutors/mentors, to look for other ways to help, such as making financial contributions to one of the organizations who attended the conference, or to Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection, who organizes this conference, and maintains a list of Chicago tutor/mentor programs so that volunteers, parents, and donors can shop and choose which program, in what neighborhood, they will support.

Networking Conference - Starts Thursday

I created this graphic when designing the program for the Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference. It illustrates how each tutor/mentor program is drawing from a network of volunteers, donors, ideas, and peers to support the youth who participate in their own programs.

Bradley Troast, our Public Interest Program Fellow from Northwestern, has posted a list of speakers on his blog. These are some of the people we are connecting to us, and each other. By writing this story on his blog, Bradly is encouraging people in his network to get involved with tutoring/mentoring.

Eric Davis sent an email blast to people in his network today. I posted it here. This is another example of how one of our peers is using his own media to draw people he knows into this network.

Imagine if thousands of people were doing this?

You can follow the conference on Twitter, and connect your own network to the people who will be attending. We're using hash tag #TMC09

Leadership and Networking Conference - Thursday and Friday

Every six months since May 1994 I've hosted a leadership and networking conference. The next one starts Thursday. We already have pre-registration of close to 150 people so this is the best turnout for a November conference in almost 10 years.

Take a look at the agenda and the attendee list. Maybe there are some people you'd like to meet.

It's tough organizing these events without much money. We'll be providing about 50 scholarships and reduced rate entrance fees. We could not do it without people volunteering their time as speakers and workshop presenters.

Thus if you'd like to help with a donation, you can send it to us at Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection, 800 W. Huron, Chicago, Il. 60642, or use our on-line donation form.

Free the Non Profits - read more

Dan Pallotta is a leading expert on innovation in the nonprofit sector and a pioneering social entrepreneur. I encourage you to take a look at some of his ideas.

http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/pallotta/2009/11/pallotta-six-todos-for-the-whi.html

Ben Wilson memorial in Trib. Sports Section. Why so little change after 25 years?

After I read my Chicago Tribune today I intended to write a blog focusing on the lack of change in Chicago 25 years after the death of Ben Wilson in 1984. In previous articles I've created maps showing media stories. See one here, and here.

In writing these, I go to the Tribune web site to get links. When I opened the site there was a new headline, saying "Mayhem spreads throughout city overnight after meetings to end violence"

Why is this happening?

One reason is that we compartmentalize these stories. Yet they are part of a complex problem that needs many solutions, in many places, at the same time. The people controlling the main media don't use their stories to point people to "web hubs" where they can learn about the problems, and be part of the solutions. All of this is part of building public will to solve problems.

For instance, the sports section devoted a full page to the Ben Wilson story. But where are stories showing how athletes are leading tutor/mentor programs, or raising money to support one or more programs in the city? We provide examples in the articles El Da'Sheon Nix, former NU football player, is writing on his blogs. The media could find these and use the concepts in their own stories.

The Tribune devoted full page coverage two two related stories today. One was the Chicago Public Schools strategy to provide paid mentoring and other support to about 300 of the most at-risk youth.

Another was the CEASE Fire effort to get students at Finger to talk to each other.

None of these is posting to the Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference being held this Thursday and Friday, Nov. 19 and 20. None are pointing at the Tutor/Mentor Program Locator, which enables readers to see where tutor/mentor programs are needed, and what existing programs are operating, who also need funding in order to connect youth with volunteers and safe places and learning, so they don't become new kids on the CPS list in the future.

I posted an article from the Youth Mentoring Network of Australia's email newsletter on the T/MC web site this morning. It was steps programs who have lost funding, and are going out of business, should take to inform mentors and mentees.

We are still having this conversation 25 years after the death of Ben Wilson because the writers of all of these articles don't focus on connecting their stories to each other and the leaders in Chicago and the US and Australia, don't focus on ways to build a consistent flow of operating dollars to help constantly improving youth serving programs be in all of the neighborhoods where kids need this help, for dozens of years, not just for one workshop to get kids talking to each other, or for one intensive intervention with kids who are already well on the way to killing each other.

DePaul Class Learns about Chicago... update

Part of my reading this weekend will be a review of articles written by first year students at DePaul University who are learning about the demographics of Chicago and the need for tutor/mentor programs in different areas.

I wrote about this assignment here. You can read the current blog articles written by these students here.

Meet students from this class Friday morning at the Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference.

Building Networks of Support for Inner City Youth

I encourage you to read this article on network building. It's titled "You may find yourself... living in a large network, and you may ask yourself... well, how did I get here?

Come to the Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference next Thursday and Friday, and you can meet Valdis Krebs, Jean Russell and myself, and more than 100 other people who are involved in some way or another with helping at-risk kids stay in school and move to jobs and careers. You can view the speaker list and attendee list on the conference web site.




Connecting youth and volunteers in a tutor/mentor program is all about building networks. These two photos show me with Leo Hall, who was the first student I was introduced to, back in 1973. The second photo is of me with Tangela Smith Marlow, who graduated from Cabrini Connections in 1998. Both are connected to me on Facebook, along with more than 100 other former students and volunteers. We're still trying to help each other.

I've led a tutor/mentor program since 1975, where my role has been to enlist people from different companies, colleges, faith networks, to be tutors/mentors so that more people would connect with more kids. I started the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993 to help programs like Cabrini Connections grow and operate in all parts of the Chicago region, not just at our single location near Cabrini Green.

The graphic below shows how I reach out to people I know, point them to Cabrini Connections, and information that I've collected, and then to maps where they can choose what part of the Chicago area they want to help, what zip code, and then what tutor/mentor program in that area.



Teaching people to use this information, or just getting more people to find it and think about it, is a huge challenge. The chart below illustrates how I reach out to other people who then can reach out to people they know. These people can use information created by the T/MC, or hosted on our sites, to choose where, why, and how to get involved.

However, I need more people helping me at the front end, to get people involved, and mentor them so their involvement grows, and has a greater impact. And I need people at the back end, helping maintain data, organize conference, publish maps, raise money, and all sorts of other activities.



I've been doing this work for more than 30 years and the number of people I've touched is extensive. However, I've had no simple ways to communicate these ideas.

That's why I'm so excited to have Valdis Krebs and Jean Russell do a workshop at the November 19 and 20 conference. Valdis understands social network analysis, and tools to map networks, much better than I do. Valdis wrote this article to show how he, Jean and I connected as a result of work started by Pierre Omidyar, The Omidyar Network, several years ago.

If we can apply this thinking to map the Tutor/Mentor Connection's network, and share our network, and this process, with others in Chicago, and other cities, we can teach more people to take the "network building" role that I have taken.

This will result in more and better tutor/mentor programs helping more youth born in poverty move through school and into jobs, using their own networks of friends, family and mentors.

Poverty, Poorly Performing Schools, High Drop Out Rates

This map is one that the Tutor/Mentor Connection has created to show where poverty is most concentrated in the Chicago area, and how this contributes to poorly performing schools (see more).

I encourage you to visit this PDF to see maps showing the distribution of high school drop outs in Illinois. These maps were created by the Midwest Education Laboratory of Learning Point Associates, and were distributed at the High School Drop Out Summit held on Nov. 4th, in Bloomington.

The maps show where the problem is most severe. Volunteer-based Tutor/Mentor Programs are one strategy that can enlist more people who don't live in poverty, and may not have kids in school, but who need to be involved in making schools in low income areas more effective at helping kids move to college and 21st century careers.

If you want to enlist your church, business, college, fraternity of civic/social group in making more volunteer-based tutoring and/or mentoring programs available in urban areas, then come to the Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference next week at Northwestern University in Evanston.

If you can't come to the conference, connect with the T/MC on Ning, or Facebook, or visit our web site and begin to use the material to support your own understanding and involvement.

We're giving scholarships to more than 40 people at next week's conference. Can you make a donation to help offset that expense?