Tutor/Mentor Conference articles

I've asked the staff at Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection to share ideas and reflections from last Friday's Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference on their blogs. El Da'Sheon Nix, the administrative coordinator (or head coach)of the Cabrini Connections team, wrote this.


Chris Warren, our 2008-09 Northwester University Public Interest Fellow, showed how the Tutor/Mentor Connection and the Conferences are intended to reduce the disconnect, or organizational silos, that separate many organizations working to help kids through school and into careers. His blog is here.

I encourage this blogging because as staff and volunteers write articles that enplane the goals and strategies of an organization, they are building and strengthening their own understanding, making them more effective leaders. It also helps me know their level of understanding so I can coach them more effectively.

Finally, the blogging is part of our network building and capacity building. Each writer has his/her own network of college, family, social, civic members who are more likely to read the blog articles of someone they know, than of someone they don't know. Thus, there are many entry points into the Tutor/Mentor Connection, which is illustrated by the graphics on the blog article Chris wrote.

Others have also offered reflections from the conference. Here are a two places where you can read comments on the T/MC Ning site and the Technology for Humanity site.

As others write in this forum, or on their own blogs, they, too, become network builders, connecting people they know with their own organization, and with the Tutor/Mentor Connection and hundreds of other organizations. Ultimately, the weight of this network-building and communications is intended to serve as advertising, to draw customers (volunteers, donors, parents, students) to the various organizations and tutor/mentor programs who are operating in different parts of Chicago and other cities.