MyChi. MyFuture. Feedback.

As the Tweet below shows, yesterday I attended the citywide meeting of Mayor Lightfoot's EveryKidConnected initiative, which was launched last October. Since then the hashtag has changed to #EveryYouth Connected, and may change again.

I am at #EveryYouthConnected meeting in #Chicago, which now is #MyChiMyFuture

Not sure. I have seen nothing official on hashtag. pic.twitter.com/Ln3xMLXKtT

— Daniel Bassill (@tutormentorteam) January 28, 2020

As the meeting ended I encouraged the others at my table to use their blogs to share their own ideas for next steps for this initiative.  Mine are below.

In this next Tweet I'm sharing the mission statement developed at the January meeting.

This vision describes a mentor rich non school youth program w many learning opportunities. Such programs needed in every high poverty area of #Chicago. #EveryYouthConnected. #MyChiMyFuture pic.twitter.com/FbgD32FxVX

— Daniel Bassill (@tutormentorteam) January 28, 2020

As I said in the Tweet, that vision is what I feel describes a total quality non-school tutor/mentor program.  The graphic below is shown in this presentation. It visualizes the growth of organized, non-school, k-12 youth programs, available in every high poverty neighborhood, with a wide range of age-appropriate mentoring, enrichment and learning opportunities.

Building a learning distribution system - read more

How we get there is what needs to be worked out.  Below are some of the ideas for generating public awareness and involvement that were shared at my table.

The MyChi.MyFuture media campaign is planned to launch at the end of March. The costs of a comprehensive tops-down campaign could be huge, thus efforts that generate free communications from people and organizations throughout the city should be a priority, now and in the future.

1) - So far there is little communications from the leaders of the initiative on Twitter, using either #everykidconnected, #everyyouthconnected, or #MyChiMyFuture.  I received an email follow up yesterday, with the PDF of the slides from the presentation.  If that had been in a Tweet I could have already shared it with my own network.  Using Facebook, Linkedin and Instagram in the same way should be strategic. (see more social media ideas below).

2) - Encourage organizations throughout the city to blog their understanding of this initiative, as well as their part of the process, as well as services available to youth in their own programs and/or communities. Bloggers could be faith groups, elected officials, businesses, non-profit youth orgs, schools, etc.  Once blog articles are written they should be shared in social media, using a hashtag launched by the leaders of the initiative.  

#clmooc 

I have written numerous articles on this blog showing my engagement with the Connected Learning #clmooc community on social media. I urge leaders of this initiative to spend time studying these, to see ways they can use these same low, or no-cost, strategies to connect people, organizations, resource providers and youth throughout Chicago with each other.

3) - Enlist students and parents as communicators. 

The Parent Mentor Program was mentioned as one example where parents are already working to help build relationships between parents, teachers and students. Such groups could be learning about non-school opportunities and existing programs and communicating those via their own efforts. Below I show Tutor/Mentor Connection/Institute, LLC efforts to aggregate and share information. Someone should be aggregating information about parent groups who could be sharing MyChi.MyFuture information and supporting youth involvement in different parts of the city.

Enlist students as story tellers.  During National Mentoring Month youth have been posting #ThankYourMentor stories.  This could be #MyOutOfSchoolLearning experience or #MyChiMyFutureLearning experience. It could also be #HowISpentMySummer  or #MySummerLearningExperience. As youth become engaged they could suggest new  hashtags, and themes for future communications and interaction efforts.

Participation maps such as this from the 2017 CLMOOC could be used to show places in the city where youth are creating messages for this campaign, and to show locations of non-school learning opportunities.

Use maps to assure youth in every part of Chicago have opportunities

Enlist students via classroom learning activities - Here's one of many blog articles where a middle school educator from Massachusetts shares work his students are doing.  If during spring 2020 educators were encouraged to develop a back-to-school activity where students used blogs, videos, social media, games and other forms of communications to share #MySummerLearningExperince or #OutofSchoolTimePrograms in my neighborhood, which were then aggregated and shared on blogs like Kevin's, this could launch thousands of stories from September 2020 to May 2021 (and beyond) to help the MyChiMyFuture initiative grow and reach all Chicago youth over the next few years.

Tutor/Mentor lists on Facebook

4)  While MyChi.MyFuture is attempting to create a master list of out-of-school-time opportunities I feel it should point to existing lists, such as the ones I point to from this concept map. I'm sure there are others that I'm unaware of. Collectively these will always have more information that what any single intermediary is able to collect and keep updated.

5)   To  help draw attention to existing providers and help them connect and learn from each other, MyChi.MyFuture should a) create a profile on Twitter, FB, Linkedin, etc. then use the list feature on Twitter, and Notes feature on Facebook, to create one of more lists of Chicago programs.  (It could create one master list, or could create lists for sections of the city, North, Central, South Central, Far South) as I do in the Tutor/Mentor Programs Directory.

Here's my TMPrograms list on Twitter. Here's my Facebook list of Chicago programs and intermediaries.  If MyChi.MyFuture were to create its own lists, people visiting their account could scroll the list to learn about existing programs via the information they posts. Donors and volunteers could learn to use this to find programs in different parts of the city to support. Parents and youth could learn this to find opportunities.

6)  - Recruit volunteers from advertising, PR, technology and other communications companies to mentor youth and teach them ways to tell stories via multiple media. At some point in the future maps should be showing icons throughout the city where people from each industry are connecting with youth.  Programs should show that multiple industries have volunteers working at their sites, not just in direct service, but in helping programs communicate their stories, their lessons and their challenges.  Many companies should be doing this as part of on-going, formal, workforce development strategies.


7) - Focus on connecting intermediaries like the Austin planning group, to others throughout the city, so they can learn from each other.  Below is a concept map showing the planning process that should be on-going in every community area.

Planning is an on-going cycle, focusing on a specific geographic area. read more

One of the roles of the leadership of MyChi.MyFuture is to identify the various stakeholders and share that information in ways that encourage conversation, interaction, learning and shared efforts among the various organizations.  Below is an example of how I've been doing that.

Intermediaries focused on youth in Chicago - cmap

Youth in various schools and non-school programs, local colleges, or any other group could be creating similar maps showing local organizations, intermediaries, etc.  Note that I point to the web sites of each organization on the map (if I have a link).  This information is published in my blogs, website and social media to encourage programs to connect and learn from each other.

8)  How will you measure this?  How will you quantify the number of youth in each neighborhood who most need these programs? How will you show how many participated during the summer, or during the school year? How will you share that, at the neighborhood level, to support on-going planning and program growth?  Below is a Slideshare pdf that shows the number of youth, age 6-17, and the number of high poverty youth, in each community area.  

Chicago Community Areas: Youth In Poverty-2018 from Daniel Bassill

Every Youth Connected implies that 100% of the youth in each area will participate in one or more learning experiences in the summer and in the school year.  That is a significant challenge, both from the planning perspective, and from the funding perspective, since right now there are so few program slots available in many areas of the city.

I've been sharing ideas like this on this blog since 2005 and on websites since 1998. I hope some of the people involved in this new initiative will take the time to look and want to have me help them understand and apply these ideas.

You can find links to my social media sites at this page.

Making Out-of-School-Time Programs More Available

 Last week I shared the 2026 State of Chicago Youth report from A Better Chicago in this post.

One of the insights of the report focused on Out-of-School and Community-Based Programs and Spaces.  

Visit this page and open the PDF report to view this page. 

The text above says that "Citywide, during the 2024-2025 school year, 31% of CPS youth K-12 participated in out-of-school programs.  Students in grades 3-8 were the most likely to engage in out-of-school programs (37%) compared to k-2 (29%) and high schoolers (27%).   The North Central (39%) and Far South (34%) regions of the city had the highest percentage of youth engaged in out-of-school programming, while the Near South region had the lowest percentage (23%)."

What the report did not include was an interactive dashboard showing out-of-school programs in Chicago, with an ability to sort by age-group served and type of program.  I would loved to see a page on their website listing the programs that are included in the 31% where CPS youth were engaged.  

For instance, they could point to the MyCHI. MY Future program, which does have a searchable map. I show the result of using the menu at the far right and asking for 'reading and writing' programs for youth between age 16 and 18 in this graphic.

You can enlarge the map and zoom into a specific neighborhood. You can drag the map view so it shows a different part of Chicago. 

When you click on a circle representing a program, you can see a description and find a website.  That's good.  What I found is that many of these are programs hosted at Chicago Public Libraries. While the site has many categories, it does not differentiate between nonprofit youth serving programs and government funded services, like the libraries.  

One strength of MyChi MyFuture is the on-going effort to bring stakeholders together for citywide meeting and to share information via email newsletters, their website and social media.  Furthermore, they have empowered the formation of 14 neighborhood networks of stakeholders to support youth in their communities.  

Visit this page on the MyChi MyFuture website and look at the community plans developed in 2023 and 2024 by each of these networks.  I just finished skimming through them. Some have great data. Some have maps. Most list stakeholders involved.  Most have comprehensive plans that stretch into 2025.

However, I found no links to websites for each of these networks, where they were actively implementing the plans, learning from what works, and each other, and developing actions for 2026 and beyond.  If you have a list of these, please share it and I'll put the link in this article.

What I wanted to find when I looked at the websites of A Better Chicago and MyChiMyFuture was a site that worked like the Tutor/Mentor Program Locator, which was built for the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 2004.  Below is the screen users would use to search for tutor/mentor programs in different zip codes of Chicago.  Below that is the first page of a visual essay that shows features in this version of the Program Locator.

Open this PDF to see a description of how to use this Program Locator.   In 2008 this was re-built as a map-based directory.  This PDF shows its features. 

These were intended to help youth, teachers, parents, volunteers, donors, media and others find existing programs in different parts of the city, with features that narrowed the search by type of program (pure tutoring, pure mentoring, combination tutor/mentor) and age group served (elementary, middle school, high school). 

This page shows my long-term goal of "Using Maps to Build Capacity".  Due to funding challenges since late 2000s I've never been able to reach this goal, but still share it with hopes that it will inspire work of others.  

The report from A Better Chicago shows that "Chicago has a problem" and "They are part of the solution". And, it uses maps to show which parts of the city need more programs. However, it does not point to any listing or directory of existing programs, to help attract attention and resources to all of them.

The My CHI My Future site seems designed to help kids find opportunities.  I don't see any form of analysis that says "Do we have enough programs? or "Where are more needed?" Or for donors and volunteers to reach out and support existing programs.  I found this type of analysis on many of the community plans hosted by MyChiMyFuture, but in looking at the lists of stakeholders it seems that many of the organizations on my lists are not included in any of these efforts.  

Since I was looking at PDFs of plans developed in 2023-24, it's possible that a greater number of tutor/mentor programs are participating in these networks.

Below is the front cover of the 1995 Tutor/Mentor Connection Chicago Programs Directory.  It was created before we learned about the Internet. It used maps to show where programs were needed, and listed programs with the same sort features as the Program Locator that we put on line in 2004.

Here's a link to an archived version of the 1997 Director. We used this format each year from 1994 to 2003.  If you look at the listings in this Directory you can see the basic outline of the library that you can now found on the www.tutormentorexchange.net website. 

Below is a graphic showing year-round communications intended to draw people together to learn, share and generate resources for youth-support efforts in specific areas.

On this page I share strategies that the Tutor/Mentor Connection piloted, beginning in 1993 and that I still continue in 2026.  

In this article I show organizations who participated in each of the Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conferences that I organized between May 1994 and May 2015. 

Last week I included this map in my first article about the 2026 State of Chicago Youth report.

Ideally each year when I look at the community networks hosted by MyChiMyFuture I would find updated maps and graphics showing participation in their meetings and the sites of youth-serving programs in their community areas.  

And when I see new research from organizations like A Better Chicago, I'd find a page pointing to work being done by others to address the same issues.

Young people could be collecting and updating this information!  Maybe it's something the new Obama Center could champion.

Here's just one more map. 

This concept map shows intermediary organizations who support youth-serving programs in the Chicago region. It includes a link to the website of each organization, so that anyone finding my website and map can also learn about others working to make life better for Chicago youth and families.  Creating and constantly updating a concept map like this could be a project done by youth in each community area.

Read more

* 2019 article - What Tutor and/or Mentor Programs Operate in Chicago Region?

* 2019 article - "Now is the time for action. We can't let perfect be the enemy of good".  See the link to the LISC Chicago "Quality of Life Plans".

* 2020 article - "MyChi. MyFuture. Feedback"

* read these articles about "program design" and building a segmented understanding of what youth-serving programs exist, and where more are needed.

As today's article, and these articles from 2019 and 2020 illustrate, I've been sharing ideas that city leaders could be using for a long time.  

The challenge is motivating people to find time to read these articles and look at what others are doing.  I saw an announcement that "The Obama Foundation and After School Matters will provide paid out-of-school time opportunities to Chicago teens in surrounding communities on the South Side."  

This is exactly the type of program that could encourage teens to dig into articles I've been sharing and the organizations I point to in the Tutor/Mentor library.  As they do that they could be leading efforts that draw more people to the information and into actions that make more and better youth learning and development activities available during out-of-school hours.

That's something A Better Chicago's report is calling for.

Thanks for reading.  Please connect with me on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, BlueSky, Twitter and Mastodon and share my posts with your networks.  

And, if you're able, visit this page and make a small contribution to help me pay the bills.

Connect with other out-of-school-time leaders

 Below is a map on the Georgia Statewide Afterschool Network website. 

This looks like a great resource.  I follow them on Twitter (X).  They post information regularly.

They are one of several afterschool resources that I share on this page of the Tutor/Mentor library.  The Georgia Afterschool Network is also listed on this 50 State Afterschool Network page, which is also on my list.

I also point to websites that aggregate youth program information on this page.  The map below shows one of the organizations on that list. It's the MyChi.MyFuture. Programs map which shows youth serving programs in Chicago.  

If these two pages don't provide enough information on out-of-school-time programs, you can also look at individual programs that I show on this page, and this page. 

And, if you visit this section you'll find dozens of research articles.

From 1994 to 2015 I hosted May and November leadership and networking conferences to try to get representatives of these organizations to connect, network, share ideas and find ways they could work together to overcome obstacles.  I used the website to share links to all of these organizations, even if they did not attend the conferences. I also included them on printed newsletters sent from 1994 to 2003 and email newsletters sent monthly since then.  You can see the conference goals on this page. 

These are still my goals.

As we enter a new school year, and the final months of 2025, programs serving youth in the non-school  hours, or focused on youth in high poverty areas, or with special needs, are struggling to find consistent resources. That struggle is magnified by how much attention traditional and social media are focusing on the actions of the current US government, and many states.

More than ever we need to aggregate information, and find ways to draw people to it, help them understand it, then help them apply it in many different places where kids and families need extra help.

In several past articles I've talked about "mapping participation" to learn "who's there" and "who's missing".  I saw a post on LinkedIn today from KUMU that showed how their platform can be used to do network analysis.

Note how when you click on each node you get information about that person, or what network he/she is part of.  Similar maps could show all the information in my library, or in libraries hosted by other people.

It would be great if someone were able to create a tool that would look at different sections of my library and created network maps showing who is visiting.  It would be even better if we had places where a large portion of the ecosystem (including media, funders, policy makers, families, youth, business, etc.) were engaged on on-going learning and planning that leads to more and better youth serving programs in all the places where they are most needed.

Until that happens I'll keep trying to keep the links in the library updated and will continue to point to this resources in my blog articles and my own social media posts.

If you've found any of this useful, let me know.  You can find links to my social media platforms on this page.

If you'd like to contribute to help pay the bills, visit this page.