Guide to Tutor/Mentor
Institute web site.
Get to know Tutor/Mentor Institute,
LLC Ideas. View "Learning Path"
Video.
Tutor/Mentor Web Library
While you can use a search engine
like Google and find information to
help you build and sustain a
volunteer-based tutor/mentor
program, you can also use the T/MC
library.
The library has aggregated and
categorized more than 2000 links to
information leaders, volunteers and
donors can use to build a collective
understanding of where and why
tutor/mentor programs are needed, as
well as ways to support them more
consistently for a longer period of
years.
Many of these links focus on
Chicago. If you're collecting
similar information, focused on a different
city, please share the link to your library
and I'll add it. If you'd like to submit a
link to the library just register, log in,
and use the "Add a New Link" feature to
suggest a link. These are moderated and if
approved, your link will be added to the
site.
Information Categories in
Library
Research
(education, drop out, social capital,
health disparities, etc.)
Blogs by leading thinkers
,
consultants, tutor/mentor programs, etc.
Link to
There are many additional categories
in the library. Spend some time
browsing the sections and bookmark those
you'd like to visit again.
Helping youth on Journey from Birth to Work
requires new thinking.
Read more
.
See ideas on building network to
support youth.
Click here
Illustrated PDF strategy essays
in Tutor/Mentor library.
Click here.
Visualizations of strategy
in Tutor/Mentor
Pinterest library
Mapping for Justice blog,
with examples of how GIS maps can be used. Click
here. |
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Comprehensive Plan Needed - 1993
Article
The newspaper story below says
"Poverty in Chicago is greater
than it was 20 years earlier
because the city has no
comprehensive battle plan."
This was a 1993 article.
The city still has no battle
plan to make comprehensive
birth-to-work programs available
in all of the high poverty
neighborhoods of the city. Such
a plan would need to address the
flow of operating resources,
talent and ideas to every
neighborhood.
(see image in
blog article)
In the mid 1960s
race riots in Chicago prompted
the Chicago Housing Authority to
reach out to businesses and
faith groups to form non-school
tutoring, mentoring and
enrichment programs. Many of
those who responded no longer
exist, due, in part, to the
challenges of providing
continuous funding and talent.
The riots in
Ferguson, Baltimore and who
knows where next, emphasize the
need for comprehensive responses
that engage all sectors of
metropolitan areas of Chicago,
Baltimore, St. Louis, Houston,
New York and other cities.
This is a graphic
that outlines
seven stages of planning
that will lead to the
comprehensive , on-going actions
that communities need to take to
address the root causes of
poverty with a wide range of
age-appropriate programs and
services. (
see video)
Step 7,
is one that the Tutor/Mentor
Connection has focused on since
being created in 1993. We need
to innovate ways to build and
sustain an on-going public
education and commitment
building/sustaining
process...without the massive
amounts of advertising dollars
available to business and
political leaders.
The ideas I share in
this monthly newsletter, and on
my web sites, are intended to
support what people and
organizations do to help such
programs grow in cities across
America.
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The
Tutor/Mentor Leadership and
Networking Conferences were
created as part of an on-going
effort to draw more attention
and support to all of the
existing tutor/mentor programs
in Chicago.
Your
participation in the next
conference, on Friday, May 8,
helps build visibility for
volunteer-based non-school
tutoring/mentoring and learning
programs as part of the
solution. It's an opportunity
for well organized programs to
share ideas with emerging
programs. It's an opportunity
for people in neighborhoods to
form learning groups that dig
deeper into ideas and research
that helps build a more
comprehensive system of
responses.
The next conference is
Friday, May 8 at the Metcalfe
Federal Building. Show
your support by registering and
attending. Add your support by
pointing to the conference on
your Twitter and Facebook pages.
Fees have been
lowered to encourage
participation. Group rates still
available.
Look at
conference participation
Since
2010 I've been trying to map
conference participation using
network analysis and GIS
mapping. Visit
this blog to see
participation maps for 2008 and
2009. Visit
this page to see a 2015
project with Indiana
University.
Other organizations
hosting events in Chicago on
same dates as Tutor/Mentor
Conference. One of the
challenges of building a
comprehensive strategy is that
there are a fragmented network
of leaders organizing their own
events to focus attention on
parts of the problem. As
Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC
pilots uses of maps to show
event participation, we aim to
make the process available to
others, or influence how they
map their own event
participation.
Read more about network
building on
this article. See
how this is critically important
to building and sustaining
long-term comprehensive
responses to the race, poverty
and inequality issues facing
cities and states. Find more
articles like this on the
Tutor/Mentor Blog.
Questions? Please
contact Dan Bassill at
tutormentor2@earthlink.net
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You can be part
of the solution!
Every
youth serving organization
in Chicago (and other
cities) requires a constant
flow of dollars and
volunteers to sustain
on-going work.
Tutor/Mentor
Institute, LLC maintains
a list of Chicago non-school
tutoring and/or mentoring
programs, organized by
sections of the city and
suburbs.
Click here.
We've
created a list of
organizations with Facebook
pages.
Click here.
Here's how you make a
difference. Browse
these lists. Get to know one
or more programs. "Like"
and "follow" one or more
programs on Facebook. Give
them "shout outs" on Twitter
and other Social Media.
Encourage friends,
co-workers, others to do the
same. Do this weekly. Read
more.
This is a role "third party"
volunteers can take. If
you want to help youth in
poverty, help them get the
attention, volunteers,
talent and dollars each
program needs.
At key
times each year, use #hashtags
that focus on what's
trending at that time of
year, such as #volunteer_recruitment
as school starts in the
fall.
This is a low
cost, personal
responsibility response, to
the stories you're reading
in today's newspaper. It's a
first step to greater
involvement.
This
is a strategy that is needed
in every city
with large pockets of
concentrated poverty. If you
don't have a master list of
tutor/mentor programs, you
can start this strategy by
searching for youth
organizations in your zip
code, using sites like
VolunteerMatch.org
However, if you're not
mapping locations of
programs,
and breaking the information
down by type of program and
age group served, you need
to support someone who will
take this role.
Contact Tutor/Mentor
Institute, LLC
and we'll share what we've
learned in trying to do this
work for the past 20 years.
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President's Message.
If you agree that making extra
adult support available to help
youth in high poverty areas move
through school and into adult
lives....
One of the companies
that responded to the Chicago
Housing Authority call for help
in the mid 1960s was the
Montgomery Ward Corporation in
Chicago. Employee volunteers
launched an after work tutoring
program that began to meet
elementary school kids living in
the Cabrini Green neighborhood
of Chicago. While starting with
a few employees, the program
grew and in 1970 moved its
weekly meetings to the
Montgomery Ward headquarters
building at 600 W. Chicago
Avenue.
I joined that program as a
volunteer in 1973, having joined
the company as a retail
advertising copywriter earlier
that year. In 1975 I became the
volunteer leader. At that time
we were starting each school
year with 100 pairs of
kids/volunteers, with 90% being
employees of Montgomery Ward.
Over the next 15 years as my
advertising career grew, so did
the tutoring program. By 1990 it
was hosting 300 pairs of
youth/volunteers at three weekly
sessions. 90% came from
companies throughout the Chicago
region. 10% had volunteered 5 to
25 consecutive years.
When I started leading the Wards
program in 1975 I had no experience
doing this. However, I began
inviting leaders of other programs
to gather and share ideas, and I
began to collect articles from a
wide range of sources. I learned how
to lead a tutor/mentor program as a
result of this process.
-----------------------------------------------------------
 My
advertising work with Montgomery
Ward showed me the importance of
spending money every week to educate
customers and draw them to our
stores.
My work with the Wards Tutoring
Program showed me that leaders need
to communicate regularly to
volunteers to build their
involvement. However, volunteers
don't have a lot of time, or talent,
to do this.
During the 1975-1992 period
media stories highlighted the crisis
of poverty, race and
inequality with occasional front
page stories, like these.
However, these were not done with a
purpose of motivating readers to
become supporters existing
non-school tutor/mentor and learning
programs in poverty neighborhoods.
After a few days stories move to
other topics. Advertising has to be
consistent, repeated often, and
reach a wide range of potential
customers (volunteers, donors,
parents, etc.).
The Tutor/Mentor Connection
was created in 1993 to fill this
void. I encourage you to
view
this 1998 PDF showing a plan
that had developed between 1993 and
1997. It invited business and
leadership support...but for many
reasons was not able to get this
consistently.
The Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC was
created in 2011 to continue to
support the Tutor/Mentor Connection
strategy in Chicago, and to help it
grow in other cities.
The riots in Baltimore and
St. Louis show that a comprehensive
battle plan is needed. You
don't need to reinvent the wheel.
Start with the ideas I share in this
newsletter and on my web sites.
If you'd like to connect with me,
just reach out via one of the social
media links below.
If you can provide financial
support to help me continue this
effort, please
visit this page.
Sincerely,
Daniel Bassill
Tutor/Mentor Connection
Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC
(Photo above is me in 1973 with
my mentee, Leo Hall. We're still
connected 50 years later.)
On Twitter
@tutormentorteam
Join us on
Facebook
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Linkedin Network
Read
strategy articles on Scribd.com
Read past newsletters -
see archive |
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