Investments needed in birth to work strategies

 View the graphics below and click into links to find more information. 

I included this graphic in this July 2018 article titled "After the march, do the planning".   It's one of more than 200 articles posted on this blog that focus on "violence" prevention and "planning".  My goal is that youth and adults from around the USA are are reading these articles and sharing their interpretations with friends, family and co-workers to help mentor-rich birth-to-work programs grow in every high poverty area of Chicago and other parts of the country.

You can look at the graphic above in several ways.

1) It includes a map, showing high poverty areas of Chicago. Programs that help kids through school and into adult lives need to be in every one of these zip codes.

2) The horizontal arrow shows the #birth-to-work timeline, which takes 20-25 years for EVERY  youth. Those in high poverty areas don't have the same range of natural support that kids in more affluent areas have, so those supports need to be made available through school and no-school hours programming.  I wrote an article last week focusing on some of the needed programming. 

3) You can also think of the graphic as a guide to investments needed.  Since the arrow, and the graphic above, shows stages kids grow through as they move from #birth-to-work, communities need to innovate ways to drive needed operating dollars, technology, talent and ideas into every high poverty neighborhood, making age appropriate programs available at each stage on the timeline.  Furthermore, at the right end of the arrow these supports need to be job training, interviews and JOBS!

Maps need to be use for multiple purposes. They can show demographic and poverty data as layers of information, pointing to places where people need extra help. 

They can show access routes through neighborhoods which might help volunteers see more places where they can connect with youth in organized programs.

They can show locations of programs, and potential support, such as banks, colleges, hospitals, faith groups, etc. We created the Program Locator in 2004 and updated it in 2008 to enable people to create map view showing small sections of the city, that could be used in planning.  

Maps can also show who's involved, as these conference maps demonstrate.  

Most importantly, maps can show a distribution of dollars and involvement.  Foundations,  companies and government programs have the ability to create maps that show where their dollars are landing, and/or where company volunteers are involved as board members, or volunteers serving as tutors, mentors, tech support or marketing and fund raising support.  

So far I can find almost no examples of maps being used this way, thus, there is little accountability assuring that funds and resources support all stages of the #birth-to-work timeline, in every zip code where such programs are needed.

I no longer have the organizational capacity to update the program locator and implement these ideas. Instead, I want to be part of planning teams who read these articles and are trying to innovate ways to implement them in different locations.

I'm on these social media channels. If you're interested in knowing more and starting a conversation, just reach out to me.

If you want to help fund the work I'm doing, just go to this page and use PayPal to send your support. 

Thank you for reading.

Make sure Pipeline to Careers has roots in all poverty neighborhoods

See pipeline in this article

I've used graphics like this often to visualize a system of youth supports that starts at pre-school and continues until a young person is in a job and taking on adult responsibilities.  While we spend billions as a nation to help people who live in poverty many programs only focus on pieces of the problem, not the entire pipeline. If there's a gap in support, the pipe leaks. In many cases this can be life changing if kids get drawn into gangs, drugs, or other negative habits.

See article

As we enjoy this 4th of July weekend and think of the blessings that most Americans enjoy, I hope you'll take a few moments to think of ways you can use your time, talent, leadership, dollars, influence and votes to create a support system that makes more of these blessings available to everyone in America and to others around the world.

This "mentoring kids to careers" graphic is a different version of the pipeline, but emphasizes the same points. At each age group kids need specific types of support to help them move to the next age level. Most kids living outside of extreme poverty and segregated neighborhoods, and in smaller cities and towns, have more of these supports available to them than do kids living in high poverty areas of big cities.

See article

This is a third version of the same idea. In this case I use "oil well" as a symbol for the birth to work support kids need. I posted these on a map of Chicago, where the darker red areas are neighborhoods of  high poverty where this type of support systems needs to be created and sustained for many years.  One role researchers can take is to create asset maps of different zip codes to identify support programs that are available and find ways to help them do good work. Such maps can also show gaps in service that need to be filled, which are where the "pipeline" is broken.

The graphic below combines some of these elements. At the right is another graphic showing the birth to work support system, along with a map emphasizing a need for support to be available in all high poverty areas.  To the right I focus on building and sustaining public will to make this happen, and the need to influence people who don't live in poverty, as well as those who operate the schools and non-profits that need to become available to more kids and families in more places.

See complete collection of concept maps

If you open the links on the graphic above, which are the small boxes under each node, you'll find other articles that feature these graphics in more detail.

As you're enjoying the holiday, I hope you'll take some time to look at this, and bookmark the page, so in coming weeks you can dig deeper into these ideas and share them with friends, family, co-workers, alumni and others who also are celebrating this weekend.

While I've written articles like this for many years, many leaders are needed to re-frame this message and evangelize it in more places to more people.  Leaders who champion and spread these ideas could be students in middle school, high school, college and/or Phd students. They could be faith leaders, business leaders, athletes, rappers, even politicians.

Share links to articles you post with these ideas, in the comment box, or on Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin.