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Cabrini Connections Tutor/Mentor Connection Monthly eNews

 Linking ideas, programs and people to help inner city kids since 1993. A Program of Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection.
 

    
 March, 2008, Issue #62

Role of a Networker who connects people he/she knows to tutor/mentor programs in Chicago.
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Tutor/Mentor Leadership
and Networking Conference,
May 29 and 30
www.tutormentorconference.org


 

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Tutor/Mentor Blog
http://tutormentor.blogspot.com

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Questions? Want to Volunteer
with Cabrini Connections?
 Call Nicole White to schedule an interview.

Contact Information

By Phone: 312-492-9614   By Fax: 312-492-9795

By Email:

Nicole White (Assistant Program Coordinator; Wednesday Staff  nicolewhite.cabrini@gmail.com 

Keith Smith (eLearning & Technology Coordinator; Thursday Staff)  ksmithjr@gmail.com

Dan Bassill (fund raising, events)
tutormentor2@earthlink.net
 

Volunteer Coordinators:
Wednesday:  Tami Wielgus, Ginny Whipple
Thursday:  Roman Shuster, Robert Herrick
Art Club: Jackie Shay
Video Club: Rebecca Parrish
Tech Club: Christopher Fosco and Kristen Owen
Writing Club: Jen King and Shannyn Nellett
Resume to Work, (RTW), Steve Dynako

 
  Includes:
  • May Tutor/Mentor Conference update
  • Recommended Reading
  • On-Line Resources
  • Community Shares Public Schools Campaign
  • On-line Volunteer Recruitment Resources
  • President's Message - Response to Youth-on-Youth Violence

NOTE: throughout this newsletter we use a TinyURL to shorten long web site addresses so the links do not break.  We hope you find this helpful.
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May 29 and 30 Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference -
Building a Leadership and Tutor/Mentor strategy for 2008-09
This week the focus of Chicago media has been on the shooting of kids outside a Chicago high school.  It's also on the continuing competition to see who will be candidates in the fall Presidential election.  Our focus continues to be on helping comprehensive, non-school, volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs grow in the high poverty neighborhoods where kids are involved in gangs and violence, and where schools struggle to keep youth engaged with learning.

Since 1993, we've used maps to show where poverty and poorly performing schools are located, as part of a strategy to draw volunteers and donors to tutor/mentor programs in these neighborhoods.  This week we've updated the way we present these maps on the Internet. I hope you'll take a look: http://www.horizonmapping.net/projects/tmc/tmc_gallery/Tutor_Mentor_map_gallery.html

The May and November Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking conferences are part of a 14-year strategy intended to support neighborhood and cross-city collaborations of business and non profits, that help tutoring/mentoring programs grow in the areas of the map that indicate a need for such programs.  The Conferences are an opportunity for people involved in tutoring/mentoring to connection and learn from each other.  

We now have a growing list of confirmed workshops and speakers listed on the conference web site at http://www.tutormentorconference.org/descriptions.asp .  Margot Pritzker, CEO of http://www.womenoncall.org will be our keynote speaker on Thursday, May 19.  (Note: if  you are already confirmed as a workshop presenter, you can now register and have your name listed on the attendee list).

We are still filling in the workshop schedule with additional workshops and speakers. If you are interested in sharing your expertise, or can help recruit others to deliver workshops, please use the presenter form at http://www.tutormentorconference.org/present.asp to submit information.

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Recommended Reading

On the Tutor/Mentor Connection web site we post more than 1400 links to research, articles and blogs on topics such as No Child Left Behind, Drop Out Prevention, Workforce Development and Diversity.  A few recent additions:

Why Students Drop Out?
This is an Arizona State University longitudinal study tracking Arizona students from kindergarten through high school to examine behavioral characteristics of dropouts found quitting is a gradual process that starts in K-8. This is contrary to the thought that dropping out is an impulsive act and that most dropout intervention programs should target high school students. Find this and similar articles at http://tinyurl.com/2acyff

Locating the Drop Out Crisis. 
Which High Schools Produce the Nation's Drop Outs? Where are they Located? Who attends them? Find this and similar articles at http://tinyurl.com/3bcv5t
 

Mentoring and Learning Resources, ranging from Public/Private Ventures to Handbook of Youth Mentoring.  Find links at http://tinyurl.com/25mrgf


CEO Summit on Volunteerism Calls for $1 Billion in Pro Bono Dollars to Support Non-Profit Infrastructure - Are tutor/mentor programs ready to claim a share of this talent?  Read more at http://tutormentor.blogspot.com/2008/02/ceo-summit-focuses-on-recruiting.html

Homework Help Web Resources - http://tinyurl.com/ytfx46

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Network and Share Ideas On the Internet

This week the Tutor/Mentor Connection was a guest on the http://thecollegepuzzle.blogspot.com/2008/03/high-drop-out-rates-another-youth.html  . We also hosted Chicago Judge Michael Hyman, at http://tutormentor.blogspot.com/2008/03/tutoring-and-mentoring-making-world-of.html

These are other places where we network and share ideas on the Internet.  We hope you'll join us in these forums.

Ning.com - http://tutormentorconnection.ning.com
Social Edge - http://socialedge.org
Other blogs - http://tinyurl.com/32tv6w
Other networking places - http://tinyurl.com/2emmuk

Mentoring Articles on Tutor/Mentor Connection web site
Did you know you can submit an article on mentoring, tutoring, fund raising and/or volunteer recruitment on the T/MC web site?  More than 6,000 visitors view this site each month.  Click here to read articles submitted in the past.  http://tinyurl.com/2gqu4l

Volunteer Recruitment links -  follow this link to find links to Chicago tutor/mentor programs, as well as national search engines such as VolunteerMatch and ServeNet - http://tinyurl.com/yqkacz
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Community Shares Fund Raising Campaign in Chicago Public Schools
Workplace fund raising is one of the most effective ways to raise operating dollars for non profit organizations. The Tutor/Mentor Connection is part of Community Shares of Illinois, as is Voices for Illinois Children,  the Community Media Workshop and more than 75 other non profit organizations. In April, Chicago Public Schools (CPS) will offer their employees the opportunity to make a charitable contribution through the CPS Combined Charities Campaign. If you are working in the Chicago School System, we'd like your help to build awareness of this campaign. 

You can support the work we do with a payroll deduction contribution. The Tutor/Mentor Connection is code number 903-0600 in Community Shares of Illinois Campaign Book.
 

President's Message:

Stop the Shootings. Stop the drop outs. Help more kids finish school ready for higher education, jobs, careers.

One of the strategies of the Tutor/Mentor Connection is to map news stories, to show where bad things are happening, and how we can change that by supporting the growth of comprehensive non-school tutor/mentor programs in these areas.  in the past few years we've not been able to execute this strategy as well as we'd like because we've not had the funds, or volunteers, to update our maps frequently. Thus, I'm pleased that, with the help of an anonymous donor, and a grant from the Lawyers Lend A Hand Program, we're beginning to make progress on this.  At http://www.horizonmapping.net/projects/tmc/tmc_gallery/Tutor_Mentor_crime_maps.html#3 you can see how we intend to display maps on the web, to follow media stories with what we call "The Rest of the Story" strategy.  At http://mappingforjustice.blogspot.com you can follow our progress of rebuilding our map capacity. By mid April we hope to be creating new maps for the map gallery on a weekly basis. 

With these maps we'll be able to show areas like the 60612 zip code around Crane High School in Chicago, which was the scene of a school shooting last week.  We'll be able to show the level of poverty in the area, which contributes to destructive youth habits, and poorly performing schools. We'll be able to point to existing organizations offering various forms of tutoring and/or mentoring, if any exist in the area.  And, we'll be able to show businesses, churches, hospitals and universities in the same area, who should be part of a collaborative effort to help kids in these neighborhoods move through school and into jobs and careers. You can read about our intended use of maps at http://tinyurl.com/2n3j9a .

As we host conferences, and write blog stories, our aim is to draw together all of the stakeholders who need to be involved in long-term, comprehensive strategies that reach kids early, surround them with an expanded network of  adults and learning supports, and help them into jobs and careers when they are old enough.  We outline what this strategy might look like in a series of concept maps. You can enter them at http://tinyurl.com/2bytmm

The May and November  conferences, http://www.tutormentorconference.org , are part of this strategy. We're pleased that so many different tutor/mentor programs have helped us offer these every six months since 1994.   We're organizing workshops for the May 29 and 30 conference now, and I hope you'll make an effort to participate. 

The http://www.tutormentorconnection.org web library is also part of this strategy.  We had over 100,000 visits to T/MC web sites last  year, with hopes that many of these visitors went to the web sites of other programs in Chicago and offered help as volunteers and donors.  We know that for the city to have a comprehensive system of volunteer based tutor/mentor programs, and learning supports, every program needs to have the money, ideas and talent, needed to operate a constantly improving organization.

If more businesses and non profits, and public leaders adopt this strategy it will create daily public awareness that draws more strategic involvement from people who want to be elected to leadership roles, and from businesses who are concerned with growing global competition and an education system that still leaves too many kids out of school and out of jobs. Hopefully this leads to more comprehensive, long-term strategies that result in less violence and more opportunity in the lives of inner city youth.

If you would like more information about the conference, or the Tutor/Mentor Connection, just email tutormentor2@earthlink.net

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Thanks for reading, and sharing, this information. I hope we can connect in the coming months.  If you have questions about the conference, or the Tutor/Mentor Connection, email tutormentor2@earthlink.net,  or call 312-492-9614.

Daniel F. Bassill
President, Tutor/Mentor Connection and Cabrini Connections
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Read my blog at http://tutormentor.blogspot.com