Cabrini-Green Kids Talk about Violence

Today's Chicago Tribune has a feature story titled, Hidden Wounds of Violence, which shows how the "exposure to violence is linked to childhood depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, learning problems, sleep difficulties, poor academic performance and a host of other problems."

With inner city neighborhoods serving as a war zone, no wonder school performance is low and drop-out rates are high. A few years ago I attended a funeral for one of our students, where I met others who had also been part of the tutoring program started at Montgomery Ward in Chicago. One told me "we don't expect to be alive at age 25".

At the end of this article, the parent of the student featured in the story said, "she has enrolled him in tutoring, mentoring and other programs to give him an outlet for his energy in a safe, indoor environment."

Tutoring/mentoring programs that operate in the non-school hours can be one way to surround youth with a network of caring adults and a variety of positive learning reinforcements...but only if they are available.

You can learn about tutor/mentor programs serving Chicago by searching the Program Links, or the Program Locator database on the Tutor/Mentor Connection web site.

As Cabrini Green is being redeveloped, many potential donors think there no longer is a need for such programs, making it difficult for Cabrini Connections and others serving youth in this area to find donors.

However, Cabrini Green is fortunate. For too many kids there are no tutor/mentor programs in their neighborhoods, or the ones that exist are too small, or not well developed.

We're trying to change this but we need your help. While the Mayor and others are holding their own meetings, we're hosting a Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference on May 29 and 30. It's at Northwestern University School of Law. I hope you'll spread the word and encourage potential donors, sponsors, business partners, and faith leaders to attend so they can connect with existing programs, and learn how to create new programs in areas with high violence, but few programs.

Make Peace, Not War!

There is an alternative to hanging out on streets, getting involved with gangs, and senseless acts of violence. This Peace Mural was created by students and volunteers who are part of an art club at Cabrini Connections, a non-school volunteer-based tutoring/mentoring program serving 70-80 7th to 12th grade teens living in the Cabrini Connections neighborhood.

This "College Bound, No Doubt About That" music Video was created by another group of teens and volunteers at Cabrini Connections.

This program offers teens an alternative choice of ways to spend their non school time, and connects teens with a wide range of adult volunteers who serve as mentors, tutors, coaches, friends.

There are many similar programs in the city. They all are constantly looking for private sector donations to fund their operations. If you want to stop the violence, invest in these programs. Make a donation today.

However, the problem we face is that there are not enough of these programs, especially in the South and West part of Chicago and South Suburbs. Good programs don't grow overnight. They take years to grow. Cabrini Connections started in 1993 with just five teens and 7 volunteers. You can search the zip codes in the Chicago Tutor/Mentor Program locator to learn about existing organizations offering various forms of tutoring and/or mentoring. When you look for more comprehensive tutor/mentor programs, or programs serving high school youth, there are very few in many areas.



If the city wants to really make a difference, it needs to encourage businesses, churches, hospitals and universities to build long term, adopt a neighborhood strategies that make more and better tutoring/mentoring programs available in more places.

This is not a short term strategy. It is an investment in peace. It will pay dividends the longer donors and leaders stay involved.

Want to know more? Come to the Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference on May 29 and 30 and meet some of the people who lead these programs.

Mapping Drop Out and Public Health Issues

I'm a fan of maps. If you search "maps" on this blog you'll see many ways I use them to draw attention to inner city poverty, and to draw resources to tutor/mentor programs in all parts of the city.

I found two new reports this week that use maps to illustrate social justice issues, such as the concentration of large high school drop out populations in big city neighborhoods, or lack of public health resources for prisoner re-entry support in inner city neighborhoods.

What is important, is that the neighborhoods in both reports are the same neighborhoods. Thus, why can't we find ways to align our programs, and our resource providers?

These reports are PDFs and the links are posted on the T/MC web site.

Find Cities in Crisis here and find NYC Mapping Health Care as the latest addition here.

Role of Leaders In an Internet World

A while back I wrote about a CEO Summit that was held in New York in February. It's goal was to encourage corporate volunteers to use their talent to help build non profit infrastructure.

Today I had a conversation with a representative from Verizon who pointed me to the Verizon Foundation web site. I've been here in the past, and have links to the site on the T/MC web site, but the foundation has done a great deal to update the information and presentation since I was there last.

One thing that is new is the addition of Thinkfinity which provides free resources to teachers. Sites like this are great resources for tutors/mentors and parents, too. One of the workshops at the May 29 and 30 Conference will be presented by Thinkfinity, which can help local programs learn more about how they might use this resource.

Another section on the web site was a Resource Center providing information non profit leaders could learn, and use, to build more effective organizations.

I think these resources and the information on the Verizon Foundation web site are great. However, for small and medium non profits, who are struggling with survival and everyday issues of doing business, this represents a wealth of learning, but not the manpower to put this learning to work in the organization.

The idea of the CEO Summit was to draw talent from business who could do needed work in the non profit sector. Some people have interpreted this as "project based work" such as "build your employee handbook" or "build your web site". However, as a non profit leader, I know that once I have the handbook, or the web site, I need manpower to manage the use of these resources in my organization on an on-going basis.

Thus, my goal is that corporations begin to encourage people in their companies who have the skills shown on the Verizon Foundation Resource Page, to offer their talent on an on-going basis, in causes that require on-going application of time and talent to get a result. I have created a PDF that illustrates this intermediary role that leaders in business, churches, colleges, etc. can take to connect people who can help, with places and organizations where help is needed on an on-going basis.

I'm going to be reaching out to Verizon to ask for their help in communicating this message, just as I've been reaching out to churches, colleges, lawyers and leaders of other tutor/mentor programs. If you're already connecting your corporate talent with non profits on an on-going basis, why not come to the conference in Chicago on May 29 and 30 and do a workshop to share your story. Or, add the link to your corporate resource page to the T/MC links library.

Answers to Youth Violence - It Won't Be First Time

Today an article on page 12 of the Chicago SunTimes talked about a "new study being commissioned by the Mayor of Chicago to find way to attack roots of crime".

In the article the writer said, "It won't be the first time" such a study was commissioned. She then wrote about the Daily-appointed Youth Development Task Force which released a "Chicago for Youth Blueprints for Change" report 15 years ago.

So, she said, "Why conduct yet another study?"

I have a copy of that first study. It's a powerful call to action, with one statement saying "If we expect young people to meet their needs in a positive manner, we must see to it that positive opportunities are in their lives."



What frustrates me about this is that one of the programs referenced in the index of the 1994 report was the Montgomery Ward Cabrini-Green Tutoring Program, hosted at the Montgomery Ward Corporate headquarters in Chicago.

While the researchers thought enough of the Wards program to include it in the report, the did not even bother to interview me, who had been the leader of that program for the previous 17 years!

We were starting the Tutor/Mentor Connection at the same time the 1994 study was being created. We operated in donated space at the Montgomery Ward headquarters, so it would not have been too difficult to invite us to share our ideas of what it takes to build and sustain a comprehensive volunteer-based tutor/mentor program.

However, nobody bothered to ask.



If they had we would have told them what we had learned, and what we believed would be a way for the city to make more and better non school tutoring/mentoring and learning resources available in high poverty neighborhoods. We would have shown them the T/MC strategy, and the way we were building a database of existing programs so that new support from the Mayor, business community and philanthropic partners could support the growth of existing programs instead of creating new ones. We would have shown how we were using maps to illustrate where these programs were needed, so that new programs could have been formed in areas where their are voids.

However, no one asked.

Part of our problem is that we're working in silos, with business people talking to each other, foundation people talking to each other, university people talking to each other, and none of us are crossing these groups to interact and learn from others who are focused on same issues. There are ways to change this, using the Internet as a collaboration portal.



We've met with people from the Mayor's office, the universities, local businesses, the United Way, and shared all of this information freely on the T/MC web site. While more than 100,000 people visited the web sites in 2007, we don't know if any were decision makers who were looking for a strategy that would not only end violence, but would make more and better learning and mentoring networks available to help kids through school and into careers.

Maybe what we write does not make sense. Thus, we've created graphics to try to communicate these ideas. You can see a couple on this blog. Search "maps" and you'll find more. Visit the Tutor/Mentor site at ning.com and you'll see more. Read the essays on the Tutor/Mentor Institute page and you'll find more.

While we can't change what happened 15 years ago. My hope is that the next round of researchers will try to learn from the experiences of people who have been in the field working to connect kids, volunteers and learning experiences for many years.

One way to do this is to come to the conference in May. (2015 update: I've taken out old phone number. Connect with me on social media.)

Creating Networks of Purpose

Every day I'm contacted by people from Chicago and other cities who are asking for information related to tutoring/mentoring. This happens because I also spend part of each day in many forums where I share information and invite people to get connected to the information I host on the Tutor/Mentor Connection web site.

Here's a collaboration presentation I'm sharing today.

My aim is to draw more people to the web library, and to the conference we're hosting on May 29 and 30 in Chicago. By doing so we help program learn ways to improve their programs over the summer, so in August when school starts they can recruit more volunteers, serve more kids, and have a bigger impact on aspirations and learning.

By drawing more people to the conference, we create greater public visibility, and hopefully draw more dollars, and talented volunteers, from business, universities and churches so that each program has the resources do put the good ideas to work in their own programs this summer.

If you click into the links on the left you can find many places where I network and share ideas. These are places where you might also find valuable ideas or share your own knowledge and experience. I hope to meet you in one or more of these virtual communities, or at the May conference.

eChicago networking event - today

I'm sitting in a workshop at Dominican University where speakers are sharing ways libraries and Community Technology Centers can use technology to serve their communities. Great ideas.

I just listened to Frances Roehm http://skokietalk.info and now I'm listing to George Reece, http://squeakcmi.org . Learn more about George's work at http://www.mste.uiuc.edu

I've set up a discussion which I hope speakers and participants will use to keep talking to each other after today.

I'll write more later.

Just finished listing to Jenny Levine talk about gaming and how libraries can adopt gaming in positive ways. Visit her site to see the full presentation.

These are inspiring ideas. How to spread them through tutor/mentor programs or to other communities is the next step.

Hospitals Bleeding Red Ink

A feature in today's Chicago Tribune and Chicago SunTimes was the closing of St. Francis Hospital in Blue Island, as South Suburb of Chicago. SSM Health Care, the owner of this hospital said "the hospital is racking up huge losses" and that "other hospitals that serve large populations of uninsured or under insured patients could follow St. Francis' path.

This reminds me of a Chicago Tribune article of July 10, 2002, with the headline of "Financial hemorage", and a subhead saying "Hospitals serving the poor are bleeding red ink as the uninsured ranks grow, health-care costs climb, and more government cutbacks loom."

I've had a strategy to prevent this on the Tutor/Mentor Connection web site since 2002. It's a Hospital T/MC Leadership Strategy. You can view it here.

My belief is that hospital leaders who support the growth of comprehensive volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs in the geographic area of the hospital, and use those programs to deliver preventative health messages to youth and families, can not only reduce the number of visits to the emergency room, but can also address another cost of operations by encouraging young people to consider careers in health care.

Read the pdf and look at some of the links posted on the T/MC web site. If you're a board member, doctor, leader of an inner city hospital, or a community leader in a neighborhood that may lose its hospital, I encourage you to bring some of your peers to the May Tutor/Mentor Conference in Chicago and begin investigating ways you can take this leadership role in your community.

The costs to be a leader are low because you're mobilizing others who are doing business, operating churches or universities in the region to share the costs of having tutor/mentor programs in the neighborhood. Your role, as the major business in many of these communities is a leader, a mobilizer, and an advocate, using your facility as a meeting place, and encouraging your medical personnel to be mentors.

If you'd like help understanding this, email tutormentor2@earthlink.net and let us help you.

Map Strategy for Saving Kids from Violence, Poverty

Today the feature editorial in the Chicago Sun Times is Come out and rally for kids slain by guns. As this was being written, another youth was slain last night.

I'm all for marches, and the intent of this is to get the state legislature to enact gun control laws.

However, I'd like to see community leaders spend some time thinking through a strategy that would create more places in neighborhoods where kids could connect with a diverse range of adults and learning experiences, with a long term goal of helping kids to careers instead of jail, or graves.

I've attached a map to illustrate this thinking. The map was created a few years ago by the Tutor/Mentor Connection and shows the West side neighborhood surrounding St. Agnas church. The area North of the church has poverty levels of 20% or higher. There are 8 under-performing public schools in this area. However, there are no organizations doing any form of volunteer-based tutoring and/or mentoring(that we know of) other than two shown on the East side of this neighborhood.

Thus, most of the kids in this neighborhood have few resources to help keep them focused on positive activities during non school hours. That's a contributing factor to poor schools, high drop out rates, high gang violence, and a high level of juvenile and adult incarceration.

This map only shows the Catholic churches in the area. Instead of marching in downtown Chicago, someone ought to be asking the Cardinal how these churches are supporting a tutor/mentor strategy. Are they hosting programs? Are they hosting neighborhood meetings? Are they partnering with Catholic churches in Oak Park or further West, to draw volunteers and donors to support existing or new tutor/mentor programs?

Until the neighborhood has more and better non-school learning supports, and builds connections between the youth in the neighborhood, and the adult and business resources beyond the poverty areas of the city, it's likely we'll continue to see youth making bad decisions, and youth high school drop out rates continuing at a high level.

Here are three pdf essays that illustrate this strategy, and uses of maps:

a) No General Goes to War without a Map
b) Role of LEADERS
c) Faith based leadership strategy

You can find more articles like this in the Tutor/Mentor Institute web site. You can also find links to existing Chicago programs and a searchable database of Chicago area tutor/mentor programs.

If the purpose of editorials and marches is to mobilize volunteers, and donors, and support the growth of comprehensive, long-term learning and mentoring programs in high poverty neighborhoods, we can begin to predict future change in the tragedies that are taking place in Chicago and other big cities.

Without a map-based strategy it's likely there will be too many marches, too much talk, and too little action.

If you'd like help thinking through this strategy and adopting it to your own faith network, business, or community, email the Tutor/Mentor Connection at tutormentor2@earthlink.net

If you're interested in building tutor/mentor programs, or supporting them, come to the Tutor/Mentor Conference on May 29 and 30 in Chicago.

Want to be happy? Give your money away!

Scientists at the University of British Columbia have proved that acts of philanthropy can be a short-cut to achieving happiness. Really!! Read the full article.

Donate to a tutor/mentor program from the programs listed in the Chicago Programs Links Library and you can help a child, and help yourself.

New T/MC Maps Show Where Violence Happening in Chicago

Since late January we've been rebuilding the map capacity on the T/MC web site, so we can follow negative news with map-stories that show where the incident took place, while pointing to neighborhood youth organizations that can grow to be comprehensive tutor/mentor programs, if the local businesses, hospitals, churches in the same area provide the resources for this to happen. Use the Program Locator's Map Gallery to find contact information for programs in the area shown on this map. Just click the map on zip code 60617.

Read the Mapping for Justice blog to follow our progress as we start creating new maps like the one shown on this page.

Easter is about HOPE. Here's what this means to me.

Every faith has high holidays where people come together and celebrate. This is Easter weekend for the millions of people who share the Christian Faith. It's a time for reflection for all of us, not just Christians. What do these religions, and these celebrations mean to us.

I think it's all about HOPE.

We live in a savage world where there is much suffering. To think that the human animal is superior to other creatures who fight to survive everyday, may be one of the follies that make us different from these other life forms. Some of us have been more blessed by where we were born, who our parents are, and what genes we have. But we all live in the same world, and are affected by the struggles of those who are far different, or far distant, from us.

I was raised in the Christian faith and every day I say The Lord's Prayer as a way of giving myself hope and energy to face my day. I think that the middle stanzas of this prayer offer universal hope.

Give us this day, our daily bread.
To me this request is not a "home run" pitch. I'm not expecting my God to make me rich, or cure my son of a disease, or end hunger or warfare. I'm asking for the ability to deal with these struggles. I'm asking for more energy, more wisdom, a better able to communicate, and just enough money to pay the bills, at Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection, and in my own home and family life.

Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.
I think this is one of the most important parts of this prayer. I can't tell you the number of times I've criticized myself for a mistake I've made, or something I did not do as well as I wanted to. I think in this part of the prayer God is giving us the power to forgive ourselves. In the movie "The Lion King" there is a scene when the monkey hits the lion over the head and says "It's in the past. Forget it."

We need to learn from our mistakes, but not dwell on them, which leads to the second part of this stanza. If we spend time getting revenge, or being angry about what someone else did to offend us, or hurt us, what good does that do? There are too few hours in each day to spend them in this way. If I don't spend time agonizing over my own faults, or the faults of others, I have much more time to work on solving the problems that I can solve with the "daily bread" that I'm given each day.

Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
To me this reflects the daily urge to yield to all sorts of things that might get me into trouble. This may be eating the wrong food, spending time on something that is not going to benefit my work, or my family, or doing something that hurts someone else or breaks one of the laws of our land. We all need a little help to avoid the things we do to ourselves.

We also need some good fortune to avoid the accidents of life we cannot control. I could walk out of this building today and slip on the ice and be injured or killed. I could live in a part of the world where crazy people are shooting guns and killing each other. Just yesterday a 12-year old Chicago girl was shot in the back by a 15-year old that was aiming at someone else....and missed. Each day I pray to my God that such an accident does not claim me, or someone I love.

So how are these prayers answered?
As the leader of a small non profit, and parent of a 10-year old and 17-year old, I'm constantly asking God for three things. Give me more time, give me more talent, knowledge and wisdom and help me live longer. With these I can be a better parent, and a better leader. I can do more to help make this a world where God answers the prayers of all who ask for help.

I realized recently that my God has been answering me for the past 30 years.

I get more time by involving volunteers who use their own time to help me with the work of Cabrini Connections and the Tutor/Mentor Connection. Each year more than 100 volunteers are directly involved, and countless others are indirectly involved. I get more time when my neighbors help me raise my own kids. More than 2000 people have sent contributions to support CC, T/MC since 1993.

I get more talent, knowledge and wisdom from the same resources. By unleashing the talent of other people, and the Internet, I expand the wisdom and abilities needed to build the type of programs and non profit support infrastructure that I'm trying to create. We have volunteers helping us in all sorts of ways, from building web sites, creating maps and databases, to hosting workshops at our conferences, or leading sessions at our tutor/mentor program. We have the potential of being joined by millions of others as we focus attention through our web sites and our maps on all of the places in Chicago and other cities where people were born into poverty or have fallen into distressed situations.

I live longer by sharing my ideas with others who adopt them in their own work. I use a variety of web sites (see links at left) to share my thinking with thousands of people who visit my sites every month. I can live forever through these ideas and the way people keep them alive in their own actions and in places throughout the world. Maybe this is one reason so many people are sharing their own ideas on the Internet. With so much information, I think what gets used, and what gets remembered will be that which helps those who are disadvantaged, and that which helps solve some of the complex problems that face our planet.

I have not become rich through the work I do, and Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection has been short of money many times over the past 15 years. Yet, when everything has seemed hopeless, there has always been some company, foundation and/or donor who have stepped forward with just enough money to help us weather that storm and continue our work.

To me this is the HOPE that keeps me going everyday. It's what I'll be thinking about as we move through this holiday weekend. I hope you can unleash this HOPE in your own lives and community services.

Stop the Violence around Crane. Is Police State Mentality the Answer?

Today and yesterday the Chicago SunTimes featured two-page stories in response to the shooting of one student near Crane High School, and the severe beatings of two others. You can read 3/17 here and 3/18 here.

These stories focus on the immediate response of setting up police escorts to get kids from one public housing area to the school, because the kids fear retaliation from kids who come from the neighborhood of the youth who was killed. That's a good show of force by our new Police chief. But it's not enough.

Last week an article in the SunTimes focused on the new book chosen by the Mayor and the Public Library that everyone in Chicago is hoped will read. Why couldn't the choice have been the articles in the Tutor/Mentor Connection web library? Maybe if more people read these we can begin to get more people involved in solving the problems that plague our inner city neighborhoods.

I'm sure the stories about Crane High School are selling newspapers. But, why aren't the editorial and education writers doing stories about how kids who fear for their lives aren't going to be focusing on learning and how this affects the future of Chicago's economy because we're leaving too many kids behind who we need to fill positions in the 21st century workforce?

Why aren't we asking John, Hillary, and Barack what they are doing to engage people in this type of complex problem solving?

Over the weekend I browsed a publication in my library, titled "Wanted: Solutions for America. What We Know Works. An overview of research about what works (and what doesn't) in social service programs." This was published by the Pew Partnership for Civic Change in 2003 (2023 note: The specific link is no longer available. Look at the "solutions" reports in this 2008 web archive).

In the conclusion the article reads "Equipped with reliable information about what works, how do communities move forward to tackle tough problems? If so much is known about promising approaches, why haven't we come farther faster in connecting all citizens to hope and opportunity."

As the authors of this report conclude, "Change doesn't just happen. It demands gifted and persistent leadership." There are no short term answers to this. Putting an army of police around this school won't solve this problem. It's a band aid. And it won't address the same problem in the area around many other big city public schools.



In many of my blog articles I use maps to illustrate the wide geographic areas where poverty is concentrated in Chicago, and where there are poor schools, gangs and youth on youth violence. I use graphics and concept maps to illustrate what the Pew Partnership was referring to when they said "We have focused too narrowly on specific interventions without confronting the complex interrelationship of issues in a community."

In this concept map of the Tutor/Mentor Connection library I illustrate the four components of the T/MC library, in an effort to draw together people from different silos, and in an effort to expand the thinking and problem solving ability of people who focus too narrowly on just one part of this problem.

Why mentoring? Because mentoring is an adult form of service learning. It can engage adults who don't live in poverty directly in the lives of youth who do. If we can support the growth of hundreds of volunteer based programs around the city we can grow the number of adults who begin to understand this problem, and begin to use their time, talent, networks and wealth to contribute to solutions.

I host a May and November conference with a goal of drawing people who read or write these articles and host these web sites, into face to face networking, and to create public awareness that draws more people to the Internet where they can read these articles and connect with others.

If you're in health care, law, higher education, engineering, workforce development, or if you're a leader, or volunteer, or donor who support tutoring/mentoring programs, I encourage you to use the conference as a meeting place (not offered since 2015) and the T/MC library as a resource for complex problem solving.

If you're the new head of the Chicago Police Department, I encourage you to look at the T/MC as your own strategy. There's no way you can keep an army of police around every high school in Chicago, throughout every school year.

The SunTimes articles show that the problems of gangs have plagued Chicago schools for 20 years and more. It's almost taken for granted. Why?

Student Song Calls for Change Following School Shooting.

Dana Mackey, a former staffer and volunteer with Cabrini Connections, who works at Phoenix Military Academy in Chicago, sent me this message:

"Check out a few of my students from Phoenix Military Academy on the news!!! David Woulard is such an amazing kid. He wrote this song this past weekend after a Crane HS student was shot and killed 2 blocks from my school.

I asked David the other day after school in the computer lab if he knew any Keane songs and he said, "Is Everybody's Changing ok Ms. Mackey?". He played the whole song and nearly had me in tears. That song is one of my favorites and I didn't think he'd actually know it. If any of you out there have any contacts in the music world, let me know!!

Check out this website to read the ABC 7 Chicago story and listen to his song... "

I hope you'll all take a look.

New Map Gallery

I encourage you to visit the Tutor/Mentor Connection Map Gallery which has been completely rebuilt by Jim Cory, a volunteer based in Madison, Wisconsin, who I met several years ago in an internet discussion hosted by the World Bank.

Jim's long-term involvement illustrates the way volunteers can use their talent to help non profits with important work. It also illustrates that volunteers don't need to be in your own neighborhood, to help.

We'll be updating all of the maps in the Map Gallery and adding new maps, thanks to work being done in our office by Mike Traken, a GIS intern. You can follow Mike's progress on the http://mappingforjustice.blogspot.com blog.

Read previous articles on maps and leadership to see how we hope these maps are used to build a better distribution of high quality tutor/mentor programs in all poverty neighborhoods of big cities like Chicago.

Blog Exchanges as part of Marketing Strategy

In Chicago we're mourning the killing of another student. People are calling for gun control laws (which I support) and I've heard some say they will put up a $5,000 reward to catch anyone who kills a youth in the future.

I wish the city leaders would spend some time looking at the availability of non-school tutoring, mentoring, learning, enrichment and jobs programs in the 60612 zip code where Crane High School is located (which is where the most recent shooting took place). Then develop a T/MC type strategy aimed at helping the existing programs constantly improve, while helping new programs form in under served areas.

On the Program Locator section of the T/MC site, I only see three organizations offering any kind of tutoring and/or mentoring during the non-school hours to teens in this zip code. If there are more, we don't have these programs in our database.

One of the challenges we face, as a small non profit organization, is reaching out to all of the organizations in the Chicago region who do any type of volunteer-based tutoring and/or mentoring to teach them to list their organizations in the Program Locator, and to keep the information current. Another problem is finding the talent and technology support to keep our web services working and easy to access.



However, the biggest challenge is a lack of advertising dollars to reach out daily to all of the people who want to see schools improve, poverty reduced, violence end, and youth more prepared for jobs and careers. This map illustrates the many different interest groups who need to be connected to this community-wide problem.

Without advertising and public relations dollars, too few people find the information we maintain in the Tutor/Mentor Library, or the directory of tutor/mentor programs we host. Thus, we're innovating new ways to build public awareness, and this is by blog exchanges. Click here, here and here to see three places where tutoring/mentoring is the subject of bloggers around the country.

If you'd like to connect with us, in this blog exchange strategy, we'd like to hear from you. It's one way we can increase public attention for all of us.

Tutoring and Mentoring: Making a World of Difference for A Child

Guest Blog, By Judge Michael B. Hyman, Circuit Court of Cook County

Tutors or mentors can make a powerful difference in a child’s life. They prepare children to reach beyond immediate circumstances. They push children to transcend societal and personal limitations. And assure children that somebody besides those in their household cares for their welfare. The results, as anyone who has done it knows, can change lives, both the child’s and the tutor’s or mentor’s.

Public school classes are too large for a teacher to interact with children individually. Parents or guardians may not have the time, the expertise or the patience necessary to affect or supplement a student’s progress. This explains why tutors and mentors are so vital – tutors and mentors provide undivided attention that can bring about academic or athletic or social growth in a young person, which might otherwise be unattainable or neglected. Tutoring and mentoring positively affirms a child’s feelings of self-worth so they develop as individuals and as human beings, and more effectively achieve their full potential as learners.

I started participating in a tutoring program during my junior year of high school. Every other week, for 90 minutes, I met with a sixth grader from an impoverished area of Philadelphia. The children were brought by bus to my suburban school. I vividly recall the first child I tutored, Matthew. He could barely read, even simple words were difficult for him, and Matthew’s struggle to read affected his self-esteem.

I remember how much he wanted to learn, and how much I wanted him to succeed. Matthew didn’t have someone at home to help him, but he had something else – desire, and as the weeks turned to months, his ability to read slowly, slowly improved. And so did his confidence. By May, although he was still behind many of his peers, the gap had indeed narrowed. In recognition of his progress, I gave Matthew a couple of books about sports to read over the summer. His ear-to-ear smile has never faded from my memory.

Decades later, I am still involved in tutoring and mentoring as a member of board of Lawyers Lend-A-Hand to Youth, a project originally created by the Chicago Bar Association and now an independent not-for-profit organization. Lend-A-Hand to Youth provides guidance, encouragement and support to mentoring and tutoring groups who serve young people in at-risk local communities. We also recruit lawyers to volunteer as tutors and mentors, recognize outstanding programs and participants, and award grants to exceptional programs. We lend more than a hand; we restore hope, and opportunity to economically disadvantaged youth across the Chicago area.

In at-risk communities, parents do what they can for their children but must deal with their own personal quandaries. Tutors and mentors offer a gleam of light for a better future. While tutoring and mentoring cannot erase poverty, crime, or violence, or put an end to neglect, abuse, or irresponsible parenting, it can make a world of difference for a child. To paraphrase the anthropologist Margaret Mead, never doubt that thoughtful, committed tutoring or mentoring can change the world of a child. Indeed, it always has.

I am sure that Matthew would agree!

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Thank you Judge Hyman and Lawyers Lend A Hand Program for supporting volunteer based tutoring/mentoring in Chicagoland.

Dan Bassill is a guest blogger today in The College Puzzle blog.

Frameworks for Systemic Transformations of Student and Learning Supports

I'd like to encourage you to review a white paper I received this week from the UCLA Center for Mental Health in Schools, titled "Frameworks for Systemic Transformation of Student and Learning Supports"

In the preface the authors write "if school improvement efforts are to be effective in enabling all students to have equal opportunity to succeed at school, we all must move significantly beyond prevailing thinking. Current policy (NCLB) and practice is a grossly inadequate response to the many complex factors that interfere with positive development, learning,and teaching."

Basically they say that "teaching to the test and the federal No Child Left Behind" strategy is a flawed policy because it does not give equal weight to the social emotional and extra learning needs of children, especially those in high poverty areas.

I agree. I wonder what our presidential candidates think about this.

The UCLA group is in the process of building a community of people who are interested in their work, and who begin to use it to support their own actions in many cities and states. With enough support communities around the country might begin to implement these ideas, and public policy, and funding, might support such a strategy.

Building such support is a difficult process. I'm not sure it can be achieved without expanding the base to include workforce development goals of businesses, hospitals and universities.

The UCLA plan is a school-centered strategy, with a community based component. I approach this challenge from a child and community centered perspective, where the school is one of the stakeholders, but not the automatic leader. The child is the center of this universe and we're all part of the "village" of people working to help that child to a career.

I feel that volunteer-based tutoring/mentoring is a way to expand the range of people involved in helping kids grow up. If workplace volunteers are targeted, this is also a way to build business involvement in education goals.

The May and November conference, and the Tutor/Mentor Connection web site, offer meeting places, and a library of ideas, for anyone who wants to expand their knowledge and become more strategic in how they use their time, talent and/or dollars to help inner city kids succeed in school, and in life.

I hope that you'll read the UCLA paper and add the T/MC ideas to this strategy and that you'll connect with us in one of these forums.

Share A Meal on March 11. Make a Difference.

Making a difference is a simple as lifting a fork. On Tuesday, March 11, 2008, restaurants across Illinois join with generous dinners to raise money for non profits in the 5th Annual Share-A-Meal with Community Shares of Illinois. Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection is a member of Community Shares (under the Tutor/Mentor Connection name). So you can enjoy a great meal, have fun with friends, and help us raise money for the work we all do.

Each restaurant will donate 20 to 30% of the proceeds of each meal purchased on March 11, and this support over 80 non profits in Illinois. Please visit http://www.share-a-meal.org to see the list of participating restaurants and non profit members of Community Shares of Illinois.

Just Why do Students Drop Out?

I encourage you to read this article based on research being done by a group at Arizona State University.

The research shows that the decision to drop out of school is a long-term process, starting as early as first grade.

This means solutions need to be much more comprehensive than what we're doing now. It also illustrates the importance of a comprehensive volunteer-based tutor/mentor strategy.