2022 National Mentoring Summit

Last week I participated in the virtual National Mentoring Summit hosted by the MENTOR, the National Mentoring Partnership.  Below are some Tweets I posted, along with comments. I encourage you to follow the links, and visit the MENTOR website throughout the year to find ideas that you can use to strengthen your own mentoring programs and do more to help kids in your community.

Part of my purpose with this blog, and each article, is to set an example that I hope many will duplicate, in Chicago, and around the country.  There were more than 1000 participants in this week's Mentoring Summit. There should be at least 100 blog articles where participants share what they learned and who they met.

Now let's look at some of the Tweets.

During one of the sessions I asked if anyone was using mapping and was told of a project being done by MENTOR Nebraska.  I looked up the website and found this PDF with the map shown in my Tweet. 

The MENTOR-Nebraska Mapping Project was mentioned in one #mentoringSummit workshop. Look at the report on this PDF. @MENTORNebraska https://t.co/nKkvs6Mfkx

This is a model every state should duplicate. pic.twitter.com/TCmBPdnoWy

— Daniel Bassill (@tutormentorteam) January 28, 2022

I hope many will review the PDF. By collecting information about existing mentoring programs in Nebraska and plotting locations they enabled a planning process that identified where more programs were needed. This is what I've been encouraging for the past 30 years.  It will be interesting to see if they make their mapping into a web-based platform and use it to try  to draw volunteers and donors to existing programs throughout Nebraska. 

Becoming a Better Mentor Guide

In more than one session people asked for help in training their mentors. I started building my library in the 1970s when leading a program with 100 volunteers, while holding a full time advertising job. I did not have the time to do on-going training of every volunteer so I started building a library and tried to motivate volunteers to dip into that regularly, doing their own learning.  I then created on-going social interaction events where volunteers could share what they were learning and mentor each other.  

I've continued that for over 40 years. The "Becoming a Better Mentor Guide" which I Tweeted about below, is a new resource any volunteer can use to build their skills.

"Becoming a Better Mentor" guide available at https://t.co/JlwIN7gZYm #mentoringSummit#Tutor/#Mentor orgs should share this w volunteer. So should educators. #clmooc #etmooc #ds106

— Daniel Bassill (@tutormentorteam) January 28, 2022

 

Understanding benefit to youth through a social capital lens.

This is a Tweet by I Could Be, highlighting a workshop by the Christensen Institute.

Great start to "Driving Social Capital for Young Adults Through Mentorship" workshop at @MENTORnational's #MentoringSummit@mahnazcharania at @ChristensenInst highlights that in addition to strong ties, weak ties are important for expanding networks and career opportunities pic.twitter.com/0ElNLFBXDs

— iCouldBe.org (@icouldbeorg) January 28, 2022

I've written articles about social capital often in the past and am pleased to see this finally getting greater attention.  A few workshops emphasized the benefit to volunteers, not just kids. That's an important reason for businesses to encourage volunteer involvement and support programs with corporate dollars.   

Virtual Mentoring featured in many workshops.  

I Could Be hosted their own workshop, which I highlighted in this and other Tweets.

Educators have had to rapidly pivot to on-line learning since #Covid19 started in 2020. I wonder how many are looking at orgs like @icouldbeorg to learn ways to engage w students on-line. #clmooc #etmooc? I'm watching this on #MentoringSummit today. https://t.co/3RyntoZ4pp

— Daniel Bassill (@tutormentorteam) January 27, 2022

I wrote about I Could Be and virtual tutoring/mentoring in this article last March. While thousands of youth tutoring and/or mentoring programs and almost every public school and college had to rapidly move to on-line learning in March 2020, a few organizations, including I Could Be.org had already been doing this since the mid 2000s. Thus, they had valuable experience to share with others.  

In response to the huge demand in 2020, MENTOR established a page focused on Virtual Mentoring Portals. 

I've connected with MENTOR Maryland before, but re-introduced myself with this Tweet.

I'm listening to Sadiq Ali now at #MentoringSummit. I encourage you to view these articles. Apply the ideas to build layers of support reaching k-12 youth in all high poverty areas of Baltimore/Washington. https://t.co/PiZapmHxUx #socialcapital pic.twitter.com/XkVA8KqtGM

— Daniel Bassill (@tutormentorteam) January 28, 2022

Community For Youth, in Seattle, was a program that impressed me. I added their blog to the list of tutor/mentor program blogs that I include in the tutor/mentor library.  

I enjoyed your presentation at #MentoringSummit

Good luck to you and your students and volunteers.

— Daniel Bassill (@tutormentorteam) January 29, 2022

I've included Capital Partners for Education in the Tutor/Mentor library since the early 2000s. I connected with them in this Tweet.

@KhariBrownCPE Thanks for connecting. I've had your program listed in the #Tutor #Mentor web library since at least mid 2000s. Here's current list. https://t.co/nHqnSrQ6zJ

The goal is to draw resource providers directly to programs & help programs learn from each other.

— Daniel Bassill (@tutormentorteam) January 28, 2022

GenerationHope was another program that I learned about. I posted a Tweet and started a conversation.

Skim through articles on my #Tutor #Mentor blog and see how I visualize long-term support and the need for well organized programs in every high poverty area. I wish I could find more sharing their ideas this way via their own blogs. https://t.co/BA3aEUgLgB pic.twitter.com/OC5VgzsUSG

— Daniel Bassill (@tutormentorteam) January 27, 2022

Connect on social media.
In many of my comments during workshops and with my Tweets, I encouraged other participants to come to Twitter to share their own ideas and connect with others.

I hope many of those posting info in the chat on the #mentoringsummit forum will also post their ideas here on Twitter. That's the only way we can connect after the Summit & build broader awareness and support for #mentoring programs in every state. Thanks for posting!

— Daniel Bassill (@tutormentorteam) January 27, 2022

These are just a few Tweets I posted. Visit #MentoringSummit and #NationalMentoringSummit and skim through the Tweets, going back to last Wednesday when mentoring leaders when to Capitol Hill to educate congressmen and senators and build support for legislation that supports mentoring programs throughout the USA.

Today marks the end of the January 2022 Mentoring Month, and the Summit seems like a great way to propel everyone forward for the work of building and sustaining mentoring and tutoring relationships  that help more kids living in high poverty areas move through school and into adult lives.  

There's lots of work to be done. Don't reinvent the wheel. Try to learn from each other.  Try to help build greater business and donor involvement that draws volunteers and operating dollars to programs in every high poverty zip code.  

Thanks for reading. I look forward to seeing your own stories. 

Elements of Effective AfterSchool Program

 I saw the Tweet below today, posted by the Afterschool Alliance.  It includes a graphic showing elements of comprehensive afterschool programs.  View the Pdf here.

What does it mean to be a comprehensive #afterschool program? Learn more about key principles that comprehensive afterschool programs follow and start a conversation with your community partners today. https://t.co/AP7UPDYUoI pic.twitter.com/H7WmdSgwV7

— Afterschool Alliance (@afterschool4all) January 24, 2022

In many of my own articles I've used a version of the graphic below to communicate ideal program design.

I actually think the AfterSchool Alliance graphic is more comprehensive. The only thing it's missing is a block showing "extra adult support/mentors" but maybe that's implied in the various types of activities included on their graphic.  

What they do include, more than I do, are other elements such as "wrap around family supports" and "healthy food and exercise".  

Helping youth programs get the volunteers and dollars needed to build and sustain such programs is what I've focused on since forming the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993 and Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC in 2011.  

Here's one article that uses the graphic at the left. Here's a few others that focus on program design and infrastructure.  

I'd love to find more people creating their own graphics to show program design and infrastructure needed, as well as maps that show all the places where such programs are most needed. 

I encourage you to share these articles and graphics with people you know and start discussions about ways you can help comprehensive programs grow in all high poverty areas of Chicago and other places. 

Be the YOU in this graphic. 

As you look at the recommendations from the afterschool alliance here are two more resources.

8 Conditions for Student Success - developed by the Quaglia Institute for Student Aspirations (QISA)-  click here

8 dimensions of development from Afterschool Allstars Project - watch video. See chart at 9 minute mark. 

Complex Problems - helping kids from birth to work

I've been using Wakelet to share collections from my blog and PDF library.  Here's a set that focus on the complex problems of building and sustaining youth support programs in every high poverty area of Chicago and other cities, helping more kids in poverty move from birth to work.  Take a look. 

Celebrate Dr. King's vision by adopting this commitment

I've posted articles during the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday many years in the past. This was from January 2021.

In all of these I've encouraged a day of learning, not just a day of service.  This week I created a new presentation, using Google Slides, to guide learning through a strategy map that shows commitments leaders can make to help kids in poverty grow from birth-to-work with support from business, volunteers, universities, philanthropists and more.

Open the presentation at this link.

Between 2004 and 2015 interns from various universities in the Chicago region and as far away as South Korea were asked to review presentations like this, then create and share their own versions.  In the concept map shown below I point to some of their work. 

My invitation to all who celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  this weekend is that you and students you work with create your own version of the strategy map, showing your commitment to helping kids living in high poverty areas move safely through school and into jobs and careers which enable them to raise their own kids free of poverty.

Had people been doing this since the 1960's I feel the world would be a much different place now.

Sharing work via Wakelet

 My #clmooc friend Terry Elliott introduced me to Wakelet a couple of years ago and recently demonstrated how you could aggregate posts in a single Wakelet. Here's one article on his blog that demonstrated it to me. 

Below are some examples you can find in my own Wakelet account. 

I've posted more than 1000 articles on this blog since starting it in 2005. They all focus on strategies and actions that help mentor-rich non-school programs grow in high poverty places and reach K-12 youth with on-going support intended to help more kids move safely through school and into work.

While I've tagged articles to help people narrow their reading focus, unless the Tutor/Mentor Connection (1993-present) is part of a formal course of instruction at the high school or college level, it's not likely that many people are going to dig through the blog to learn all that's available.

Thus, I've created a collection on Wakelet, each with 7-10 articles, that I hope will help narrow the learning path and engage more people from Chicago and around the world.

There are already many youth tutor, mentor and learning programs operating  in Chicago and around the country. However, few people are aggregating lists of programs and trying to use maps to show what area of the city the programs serve, or what age group.

Building that information base enables anyone to ask "How can we do this better?"  How can we help existing programs get the resources to operate and constantly improve by borrowing ideas from each other?

How can we help new programs form in areas where more are needed, then also get the continuous flow of resources needed to keep kids and volunteers connected from year-to-year? 

As you do your day of service to celebrate the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, spend some time looking at these articles and discussing them with friends, co-workers and others.  Put the ideas to work this year and next year celebrate what's been accomplished.

Where it began. Tutor/Mentor Connection

 When I and six other volunteers met in November 1992 and launched a new organization that would provide tutor/mentor support to 7th grade kids aging out of the program I led from 1975 to Oct 1992, we had many years of previous experience to draw upon. However, when we also decided to create a strategy that would help volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs grow in all high poverty areas of Chicago, we did not have many examples to follow. 

I became a volunteer with the Tutoring Program at the Montgomery Ward corporate headquarters in Chicago in the fall of 1993. Two years later I was made the leader of that program. For the next 15 years, while my retail advertising jobs at Montgomery Ward grew in responsibility, the tutoring program also grew, from 100 pairs of kids and volunteers meeting weekly in 1975 to more than 300 pairs by June 1990.  

At that point we turned the program in to a non-profit and I took a full-time job leading the program. We grew from 300 pairs in 1990 to more than 440 kids and 550 volunteers by June 1992. 

This growth was the result of building a team of volunteers, drawn from many different Chicago area companies, who helped recruit and train other volunteers and lead the weekly tutor/mentor sessions.  

However, it also was a result of my reaching out to find leaders of other tutor/mentor programs in Chicago, to learn from them and to share my own strategies.  These included programs at 4th Presbyterian Church, Continental Bank, the Blue Gargoyle at the University of Chicago, the CYCLE program at the LaSalle Street Church, a program at Quaker Oats company and a few others.

Recognizing that we all recruited and trained volunteers in August-September we decided to pool our efforts and do joint training events. As we did, we tried to reach out and invite other programs to participate. However, no one had a master list, so we had difficulty finding other programs. The only one in Chicago who seemed to be building a list was myself. 

It was this networking with other leaders, and trying to locate other programs, that planted the seed for the Tutor/Mentor Connection (which in 2011 became Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC). 

However, it also was this constant flow of stories about violence in Chicago that inspired the T/MC.  In my advertising roles at Montgomery Ward we created weekly print ads that reached 20 million people in 40 states, telling them that we had merchandise and services at a store near them that they were looking for, and that this week, they were on sale.  This constant call to action, pointing to each of our stores, was missing from media coverage of violence.

This concept map shows the 1965-1992 growth of the tutoring program at Wards. 

The program that existed in 1992 was the result of incremental, year-to-year growth, starting in 1965 when a few employees from Montgomery Ward started meeting with elementary school kids living in the Cabrini-Green neighborhood.  By 1978 we were attracting national attention. This letter shows a confirmation for me to speak at the National Right to Read Conference.  This PDF shares a 1988 study by the Center for Early Adolescence at the University of North Carolina, that cited the Montgomery Ward/Cabrini-Green literacy program as "one of the best in the nation."

Thus, when we decided to launch the Tutor/Mentor Connection we had many years of experience to share to help other programs grow.  

While we launched the first Kids' Connection meetings with youth in January 1994 we spent all of 1993 planning the strategy for what became the Tutor/Mentor Connection.  Originally we called this "Chicago Youth Connection".  You can see from the chart below that we had people from universities, a public relations firm, and MCIC, a Chicago information research organization, involved with the planning. 

We changed the name to Tutor/Mentor Connection in the fall of 1993 after hearing from Chicago Youth Centers (CYC) that they hoped we would not use the same CYC name.  

The result of our planning was a 10-point strategy intended to build an information base, with a comprehensive list of tutor/mentor programs serving Chicago, and a public information strategy that drew more consistent attention, and resources, to every program.  That strategy is described in the graphic below, and in this Case Statement from 1994. 

We launched the strategy in January 1994 with a survey sent to 500 people in the Chicago region asking if they led a volunteer-based tutor/mentor program and, if yes, to provide details.  120 programs responded and told us that they had little contact with peers, would like more contact, and would come to a conference if offered at low, or no, cost.  So in May 1994 we organized the first Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference. 70 people attended and feedback was positive. So we organized a second conference in November 1994 and 200 people attended.  We continued that conference every six months until May 2015.

We also published our list of programs in a printed directory.  You can now find this list of programs here. 

By 1996 we had added an August/September Chicagoland Volunteer Recruitment Campaign, a November Tutor/Mentor Week, and a partnership with the Lend A Hand Program at the Chicago Bar Foundation.  Here's an article in the 1996 CBA Report newsletter about Tutor/Mentor Week. 

We condensed the 10 steps to four, which are visualized in this concept map.

We had no money, only a few volunteers and a vision when we launched the Tutor/Mentor Connection and the Cabrini Connections program. We had to raise the money to pay for our work each year.  We reinvested what we learned from what worked, and what did not work, and what we were learning from others, in constant year-to-year efforts that aimed at helping volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs grow in more places, and helping those programs improve their impact on the lives of kids and volunteers each year.

This concept map timeline shows 1992 to 2022 growth of the T/MC (1993 to present) and Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC (2011-present) and milestones in this on-going growth.

Keep in mind as you view this that while we were building and leading the Tutor/Mentor Connection to help ALL programs in Chicago, we were also building our own Cabrini Connections program. Here's another concept map that shows this two-part strategy from 1993 to 2011. The first priority of our Board and volunteers was keeping the kids' program working, thus, when the Montgomery Ward company went out of business in 2000 we made a decision to rent expensive space near Cabrini-Green to continue supporting our kids, rather than move to less expensive space elsewhere, where we could continue the Tutor/Mentor Connection.  

While our timelines show consistent growth over time, the reality was that growth was inconsistent. The graphic below shows dips in funding in 2000, 2001, 2008-10 caused by man-made and natural disasters.  Each time funding was reduced we had to prioritize attention on the kids' program, yet continue to operate the Tutor/Mentor Connection.  If this graphic were extended to post 2011 it would show a decade-long dip in funding, almost down to zero.

Every action taken over the past 45 years has aimed at connecting a youth from a high poverty area with an adult who would serve as a tutor, mentor, coach, friend and extended family, in an on-going effort to help each child overcome the challenges of high poverty as they move through school and into adult lives, with jobs that enable them to raise their own kids free from the grips of poverty.

For many kids it has worked. I'm connected on Facebook at many students from the 1970s till 2000s and see them posting stories showing their own kids finishing high school and college.  I see similar stories from a few other tutor/mentor programs in Chicago and around the country.

But not enough.

We started using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to plot locations of tutor/mentor programs on maps in 1993. By 2004 we had an interactive search page on the Internet that enabled people to search for programs in specific zip codes, based on age group served and type of program. In 2008 we launched an interactive map directory that enabled leaders to look at the entire city, or specific sections.

Unfortunately, since 2011 I've not found the money, or the volunteers to keep these services available and updated and they are only available as archives in 2022.  

I urge you to view map stories on this blog, and the MappingforJustice blog. See how I've tried to use maps as part of planning and resource development to support existing programs, or help new programs form where more are needed.  

I turned 75 last December.  While I will spend this year and future years continuing to invest time, talent and ideas in this effort, every city in the US and the world would benefit from a map-based strategy based on what I've piloted since 1993.  

Thus, while I'm still available to help, why not form a team and make a commitment to build your own Tutor/Mentor Connection type strategy.  

Take a tour of the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC website. Use it as a text book for learning about the work done since 1993 that you and others could build on in the next decade. If you launch such a strategy, I can make my Google Drive archives fully available, to help  you learn from my own efforts. 

Remember, the goal is not one, or a few, great programs, but a city filled with great birth-to-work programs in EVERY high poverty zip code.

If you'd like my help, connect with me on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or Instagram (see links here). 

If you'd like to help me pay the bills, visit this page and make a contribution.