Building Systems of Support for Youth. Where Do I Start.

This graphic includes a lot of ideas, all focused on what leaders in a community need to do to build systems of school-based and non-school-based support that help all kids move through school and into adult lives with jobs and careers.

I share these on Pinterest and in blog articles I've written here since 2005, and on the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC web site, which I started in 1998 as a component of the Tutor/Mentor Connection library.

I learned what I know, and built this library, over a period of 40 years, drawing from many experiences along the way, and borrowing ideas from many other people and organizations. Thus, my biggest daily challenge is to figure ways that other people can become familiar with these ideas in a much shorter time frame.

A few years ago I created the concept map below, as a learning guide for staff who joined me at the Tutor/Mentor Connection.  It's now a guide for anyone else who wants to journey through this information.

Then in 2015 an intern from South Korea, via IIT in Chicago, spent time opening and reviewing each link in the map, and then created a visualization to describe what was included. She used Prezi to do this, then transferred the work to YouTube, which you can see below.

This is the solution to my problem and to similar problems faced by others who aggregate content related to local and global problems.  

Youth and adults from faith groups, business, middle and high schools, colleges and other organizations in Chicago or in cities throughout the world, could take their own journey through this concept map, and other resources in my library, then create their own presentations and discussions to bring others from their community to the information, and into brainstorming and innovation sessions intended to build and sustain long-term systems of support helping youth move more safely and successfully through school and into adult lives.

Yesterday I viewed a video of Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart's presentation last week at ChiHackNight. As I viewed the video I tweeted some things he was saying. I encourage you to take a look, too.

@tomdart at #chihacknight. "You got to be in it (solutions) for the long-term." https://t.co/ZQpEVziwBP Yep. No quick fixes.

— Daniel Bassill (@tutormentorteam) June 12, 2017

He's one of the people I hope will look through these ideas and want to start a conversation about ways he can champion them and apply them via his own office.

There's much to learn, and much to do.  It starts with learning what's already available.