With poverty maps, it's easy to see where some kids need help. Not so easy with others.

I've been using maps since 1993 to show where kids need extra help provided by non-school tutor/mentor programs, based on indicators like high poverty, poorly performing schools, and/or incidents of violence. You can skim through many articles on this blog and see how I've done that.  You also can look at the articles at the MappingforJustice blog, or on the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC site, and see more examples.

Based on the information I've been able to collect, there are too few programs in many parts of Chicago and some of the programs that do exist need a lot of help on an on-going basis to be considered "world class" in what they do.

However, there are many youth who do not live in high poverty areas who also need extra help.  I saw a version of the graphic below on Kevin Hodgson's Twitter feed this week.

I created my own version, putting an "x" on one of the flowers. Can you find it?

My point is that kids who may be struggling with many personal and family issues blend in with other kids in their public and private schools. This problem affects kids of all income levels and all race groups.

The kids could be from broken families or from families where one, or both, parents are in the military and deployed overseas. They are kids who might be bullied. Or who could be struggling with depression, and at risk of suicide.

My maps make it easy to focus on geographic areas where indicators show that extra help is needed. There are no maps that show who these other kids are.

These kids need our attention and help, too.