Reaching youth in high poverty areas - distance matters

My blog articles aim to motivate readers to think of ways they can be strategically involved in helping kids born or living in high poverty areas move through school and into adult lives over a 12 to 20 year period of consistent support.

In the concept map below I show the logic model that I’ve developed over the past 30+ years and a progression of thinking that I hope you and others will follow.

If you read the concept map, from upper left and follow the 1-7 numbers you'll see the following:

1) Our attention is drawn to problems by negative news stories and new research.  Many stores point to the need for more youth-serving programs. 2) Much of the research shows the benefits of organized, on-going programs. 3) Organized programs provide a way for volunteers and youth to connect. 4) Someone needs to have a list of existing programs so while media attention motivates people to look for ways to get involved, they have a resource that shows them choices of where to get involved.  

5) Once it's accepted that organized programs are needed in many places, we need to recognize that each of them needs a constant flow of the same type of resources (ideas, talent, dollars, technology, etc.). 6) That leads to building an understanding of the challenges of existing funding systems, then innovation of new ways to generate a better flow of flexible dollars into every high poverty neighborhood of Chicago and other places with concentrations of persistent poverty.

7) So, where are people meeting to talk about this?  What research is available to support these conversations?  

Most kids have a wide range of support from family, community and schools. Kids living in high poverty areas have fewer of these supports. Plus, there are many more challenges impeding their progress. The concept map shown below visualizes these challenges. 

Volunteers who kids meet in organized tutor/mentor programs can be extra adults who help kids overcome many challenges.  But if you look at the maps of Chicago you can see that there are challenges in connecting volunteers who model jobs and different learning opportunities with kids living in areas of concentrated poverty in the city and suburbs.

Distance matters. I write more about that below.

I pointed to a report from A Better Chicago in an article I wrote on April 5th. Pages 26 to 29 of the report focus on the need for community based programs, such as tutor/mentor and learning.

They show that high poverty areas have fewer programs and that “youth of all ages and races overwhelmingly want more access to programs in their communities.” 

I’ve shown this same information on maps since we published our first Directory of Chicago volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs in 1994. 

I continue to share lists that people can use to find programs. You can find them here. 

If you’ve read many of my blog articles you’ll notice that I focus on Chicago and big cities. Mainly that’s because it’s where I lived and worked since 1973 and where I began leading a volunteer-based tutor/mentor program in 1975. 

You'll also see that I'm trying to draw attention and resources to every high poverty area, and every volunteer-based tutor, mentor and learning program, not just those with the highest profile. Good programs are needed in every neighborhood. That means they need good leadership and consistent funding.

In this article I want to talk about distance, or the time it takes for a volunteer to go from work to a place where she can meet for one, or two, hours with a youth who lives in a high poverty area and attends a school in a high poverty neighborhood. And the three time frames where these connections need to be happening. 

I've used the two graphics shown below for many years. The first shows the role of volunteers from many backgrounds connecting with youth in organized tutor, mentor and learning activities.

The second shows that the non-school hours have two time frames. The traditional afterschool hours, from 3pm to 6pm, are a time frame when parents are still working and kids need supervision. Organized programs are needed in almost every neighborhood. 

The after-five PM hours are a time frame when volunteers are traveling from work to home and can stop for a few hours at a tutor/mentor program site in a high poverty neighborhood to serve as a tutor, mentor, coach, program leader or in other roles.

Both of these graphics emphasize the 12 years it takes for EACH child to grow from first grade to high school graduate, and the 4 to 8 years after that as young people finish extra education and start to find jobs and build careers.

I've used maps since 1993 to show the distribution of volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs in Chicago. 

I’ve been trying to build a nuanced understanding of this since we started collecting information about programs. In our Directories we provided information by age group (elementary, middle school and high school) and by type of program (pure tutor, pure mentor, tutor/mentor).   In this article you can read about the interactive program locator that we built in 2004 and updated in 2008, which is now only an archive. It shows what we were trying to do and what others might build in the future. 

By aggregating and segmenting data about existing programs we can ask "How many programs are needed? and "Where are more programs needed?"    Below is a map created in 1997 that shows this question. You can see it in this article. 

When you first look at the map at the right you might say "there are a lot of programs". But when you segment by age group served and type of program you'll see far fewer, especially for older youth.  

We never reached a point where we could survey to learn about arts, technology, STEM, youth leadership, etc. forms of learning in non-school, volunteer-based programs but adding that would offer valuable insight to planners and funders.

We created the map below in the late 2000s. It shows the expressways and rail lines that bring people from the suburbs into the city every day (and from the city to the suburbs). 

Big cities like Chicago, with a large geographic footprint, are measured in miles. From North to South is a distance of about 25 miles.  From the LOOP area in central Chicago to the Oak Park border on the West side is 10.2 miles. Driving through congested areas makes this a long trip for any volunteer trying to leave work during the school day to go to a public school or after school program.  Doing this weekly for several years is a difficult commitment.

Yet, if that volunteer works in the LOOP and lives in Oak Park or further West, there are many places near the transit stops or off the Expressway where that volunteer might stop for a few hours, and keep participating for multiple years.  In the program that I led from 1975 to 1992, hosted at the Montgomery Ward Corporate office on Chicago Avenue, we welcomed volunteers who came from as far away as Naperville! 

Other big cities probably have the same geographic challenges.  Yet there is a huge pool of potential volunteers to draw from, due to the massive population of Chicago and other big cities. There are also huge numbers of kids living in high poverty areas.

So, if you looked at the concept map at the top of this article, are  you talking with people in your network about ways you and them might help tutor/mentor programs grow in Chicago or other cities?

So be the YOU in the graphic below. Share my articles and the resources in the Tutor/Mentor Library and grow the number of people who are thinking strategically, and long-term, about ways to build and sustain mentor-rich non-school programs that help kids in high poverty areas move from birth-to-work.

Every city just needs a consistent, year round communications program that draws volunteers and donors to every existing youth program and shows where more are needed.  Visit this page and see the event strategy developed by the Tutor/Mentor Connection between 1994 and 1998 that I continue to support. Borrow from these ideas to build your own year-round campaigns. 

Then, for all of you who don't live in big cities who are saying "What about us?", start building a library of information, with maps, showing where organized tutor/mentor programs are needed and where existing programs, and volunteer opportunities are located.  And build your own communications campaigns.

In smaller communities it might take less time to go from work to a school during the school day, so more volunteers might engage that way.  However, in rural areas where population density if far less and geography far larger, the problem is different. Mapping where kids live who might benefit from tutor/mentor programs, and places where they might connect with volunteers, is still a step toward a solution, because it provides a solid information base to work from.  However, building long-term, face-to-face connections with volunteers who model many different career opportunities may be more difficult.

In big cities and rural areas and reservations on-line mentoring and tutoring has a lot of potential, but it's long term impact on helping kids through school and into adult lives has yet to be proven.  I point to e-Mentoring and e-Tutoring programs in this section of my library. Learn from what they are doing.

What I'm showing in articles like this  is that there are a lot of questions that need to be answered and a lot more people need to be involved, in many ways, for many years.  So if this is something you've been thinking about, please introduce yourself and share your research and your ideas.

This is me in the mid 1990s with a map of Chicago in the background. This could be you in the next few years.  Hopefully it will be many people, not just one, or two.

Let's connect on social media. This page shows where you can find me.

And, this page shows how you can make a contribution to help fund my work. Your help is needed.