Showing posts with label violence. Show all posts
Showing posts with label violence. Show all posts

Monday, March 11, 2024

So many years. So few changes.

Below is a concept map that I created several years ago to show planning that needs to be happening in Chicago and other places with high concentrations of persistent poverty.

Open the map and follow the links. Is this process happening in your city?  Do you have a similar concept map. Do you host open meetings on ZOOM or another platform? 

Today I read an article which I posted in March 2006, following shootings in the Englewood area of Chicago.  I'm re-posting it because the message then is still relevant now.

----- begin 2006 article -----

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve written about the shootings in Englewood, and expressed my concern that nothing will happen because there is no plan for engaging people from beyond poverty in this discussion in a process that creates ownership, understanding of the issues, and a dramatic increase the resources needed to build and sustain comprehensive tutor/mentor programs in poverty neighborhoods.

Yesterday, 3/21, I participated in an audio conference titled “Integrating Mentoring and After-School”, which focused on the need for mentoring programs in more places (like Englewood) and the potential for these programs being hosted in traditional after-school programs, such as Boys & Girls Clubs, YMCA’s, schools, etc. I encourage you to read the Policy Commentary at https://web.archive.org/web/20060324000257/http://www.forumfyi.org/files/ostpc11.pdf. In a few days you should be able to read a transcript of the actual audio conference.

Today, 3/22, I attended an event titled Non profit Leadership Challenges and Opportunities, which was hosted by the Donors Forum of Chicago 

Representatives from Compass Point, presented findings from a web survey that was distributed in eight cities over the past year. It’s titled “Daring to Lead, 2006” and you can download the full report at www.compasspoint.org.

The Daring to Lead presentation highlighted three surprising findings: a) 30% of executives leave their jobs involuntarily (either fired or forced out); b) Executive directors plan to leave their jobs but will stay active in the nonprofit sector; and c) A key driver of executive burnout is frustration with funders.

While the focus of the Donor’s Forum meeting was on succession planning, which is essential to leadership stability and organizational growth, the research constantly pointed to a lack of ACCESS TO CAPITAL as the primary challenge facing small and mid size non profits. Their was a rousing cheer when the need for funding non-restricted, long-term general operations funding was raised as a pivotal issue.

I agree. You cannot keep good leaders, or pay them well, or offer retirement, if you don’t have enough money to pay the rent on a regular basis. If you deal with this problem every day for 12 years, as I have, it tends to be a bit stressful.

How do these issues connect? If we want to do more to reduce the violence in neighborhoods like Englewood, we must provide better education and career opportunities. To do this we must increase the range of non-school programs that help kids succeed in school, stay safe in non-school hours, and move successfully to jobs and careers. The only time when work place adults are consistently available to be involved in long-term mentoring is after 5pm, when most after-school programs are not open.

Finally, it takes years to build good tutor/mentor programs and it takes a dozen years just to help a youth go from first grade through high school. It takes another 6-8 years before that youth is anchored on a career path. We can never support this process on a consistent basis in many locations if we cannot attract and keep key leaders for existing programs, let alone attract thousands more for the additional programs needed in Chicago and around the country.

We cannot do this without changing the funding paradigm.

So what do we do next?

There must have been over 500 people at the Donors Forum event. I don’t know how many were in the audio conference on Tuesday. However, most will never be in the same room, or the same discussion, at the same time again, because there was no strategy in evidence that gave participants and opportunity to connect with each other, and the presenters, in a facilitated, and open, on-going dialogs.

That’s why we created the Tutor/Mentor Connection. That’s why I invite anyone interested in tutoring/mentoring as a strategy for civic engagement and for increasing the understanding of poverty, to participate in the May and November Tutor/Mentor Leadership Conferences held in Chicago and on the Internet.

These are a meeting place for people to come together to present, reinforce, advocate and discuss information such as was presented over the last two days, in the context of the urgency that is reinforced by the media coverage of events like the shootings in Englewood.

Over the past two year’s we’ve also begun to develop a web conferencing process, so that people from distant locations can connect with people in Chicago, during the May and November conference periods, and so that people can stay connected on an on-going basis. As others host video and audio conferences, or face to face meetings such as today's event, my hope is that they will build web strategies that link the participants to each other, and to affinity groups such as the Tutor/Mentor Connection.

Our goal is to turn discussions into meetings, and meetings into a process of identifying tipping points, or ways to collaborate in activities, like leadership development, funding, volunteer recruitment, which effect all tutor/mentor programs in the country, not just our program in the Cabrini Green neighborhood of Chicago.
(note: if you're an architect, or work with complex decision support, we'd like to recruit you to map this process, to create a blueprint that people could follow to understand the problems and to be strategically involved in the solutions)

If you read back through the blogs I’ve posted in the past year, you’ll see that there have been many forums where information of importance was presented to a gathering of interested people.

I invite all of those who are creating and presenting research on poverty, workforce development, tutoring/mentoring, violence prevention, youth development, service learning, etc. to use the T/MC conferences and internet space as additional times and places where you can present your information, help more people understand it, and contribute to a long-term process that leads to the development of more and better programs that keep kids safe, successful in school and moving toward jobs and careers.

You can read about the conference at http://tutormentor.blogspot.com

---- end 2006 article -----

I've not hosted the Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference since 2015, but still maintain an extensive web library and list of volunteer-based, Chicago area youth tutor, mentor and learning programs. I still post articles weekly, and social media posts daily, to draw visitors to the information in the library.  I keep looking for places to connect.

I created this graphic a few years ago around St. Patrick's Day, which is this week.  It says "We CREATE our own LUCK with the help of others."   It points to the four concurrent strategies that should be part of any planning process, which I've piloted since 1993.

I have not had resources to effective lead this strategy for many years, but keep sharing the ideas to inspire others to use them, in their own leadership.  

I'm on most social media platforms. Let's connect. (see links here)

You can help improve my own luck with a small contribution to help Fund the T/MI.  Visit this page and use the PayPal service. 

Thank you for reading.   May the Forth be With YOU!





Sunday, April 02, 2023

Crime and Violence in Chicago - Not New

As I read through today's Chicago Sun-Times I saw this article about the violent death of a student athlete from Crane Medical Prep High School on Chicago's Near West Side.

I thought I'd written about Crane HS in the past so did a search and found an article from 2008 with the headline of "Stop the Violence around Crane. Is Police State Mentality the Answer?"

Chicago is electing a new Mayor this Tuesday and that question seems to be dominating voter, and media, attention.

I encourage you to read what I wrote 15 years ago.

start - 2008 article ---

Today and yesterday the Chicago Sun-Times featured two-page stories in response to the shooting of one student near Crane High School, and the severe beatings of two others. You can read 3/17 here and 3/18 here.

These stories focus on the immediate response of setting up police escorts to get kids from one public housing area to the school, because the kids fear retaliation from kids who come from the neighborhood of the youth who was killed. That's a good show of force by our new Police chief. But it's not enough.

Last week an article in the Sun-Times focused on the new book chosen by the Mayor and the Public Library that everyone in Chicago is hoped will read. Why couldn't the choice have been the articles in the Tutor/Mentor Connection web library? Maybe if more people read these we can begin to get more people involved in solving the problems that plague our inner city neighborhoods.

I'm sure the stories about Crane High School are selling newspapers. But, why aren't the editorial and education writers doing stories about how kids who fear for their lives aren't going to be focusing on learning and how this affects the future of Chicago's economy because we're leaving too many kids behind who we need to fill positions in the 21st century workforce?

Why aren't we asking John, Hillary, and Barack what they are doing to engage people in this type of complex problem solving?

Over the weekend I browsed a publication in my library, titled "Wanted: Solutions for America. What We Know Works. An overview of research about what works (and what doesn't) in social service programs." This was published by the Pew Partnership for Civic Change in 2003 (2023 note: The specific link is no longer available. Look at the "solutions" reports in this 2008 web archive).

In the conclusion the article reads "Equipped with reliable information about what works, how do communities move forward to tackle tough problems? If so much is known about promising approaches, why haven't we come farther faster in connecting all citizens to hope and opportunity?"

As the authors of this report conclude, "Change doesn't just happen. It demands gifted and persistent leadership." There are no short term answers to this. Putting an army of police around this school won't solve this problem. It's a band aid. And it won't address the same problem in the area around many other big city public schools.



In many of my blog articles I use maps to illustrate the wide geographic areas where poverty is concentrated in Chicago, and where there are poor schools, gangs and youth on youth violence. I use graphics and concept maps to illustrate what the Pew Partnership was referring to when they said "We have focused too narrowly on specific interventions without confronting the complex interrelationship of issues in a community."

In this concept map of the Tutor/Mentor Connection library I illustrate the four components of the T/MC library, in an effort to draw together people from different silos, and in an effort to expand the thinking and problem solving ability of people who focus too narrowly on just one part of this problem.

Why mentoring? Because mentoring is an adult form of service learning. It can engage adults who don't live in poverty directly in the lives of youth who do. If we can support the growth of hundreds of volunteer based programs around the city we can grow the number of adults who begin to understand this problem, and begin to use their time, talent, networks and wealth to contribute to solutions.

I host a May and November conference with a goal of drawing people who read or write these articles and host these web sites, into face to face networking, and to create public awareness that draws more people to the Internet where they can read these articles and connect with others.

If you're in health care, law, higher education, engineering, workforce development, or if you're a leader, or volunteer, or donor who support tutoring/mentoring programs, I encourage you to use the conference as a meeting place (not offered since 2015) and the T/MC library as a resource for complex problem solving.

If you're the new head of the Chicago Police Department, I encourage you to look at the T/MC as your own strategy. There's no way you can keep an army of police around every high school in Chicago, throughout every school year.

The SunTimes articles show that the problems of gangs have plagued Chicago schools for 20 years and more. It's almost taken for granted. Why?

---- end 2008 article ----

I have not hosted a conference since 2015 due to lack of funds and competition for attention. Yet I still maintain a web library and use this blog and social media to try to draw users to that library. 

I use social media as a meeting place where people can connect and share ideas. 

In many of the articles on this blog, dating back to 2013, I've written about cMOOCs, a form of on-line learning and network building. On April 12th a new gathering will look at Artificial Intelligence.  You can learn about this here and follow along on Twitter using the #ETMOOC2 hashtag. 


I point this out because whoever wins Tuesday's election is going to need to find innovative ways to connect people from this huge city with ideas and strategies, and resources, that lead to better solutions than I've seen in Chicago for the past 30 years. cMOOCs and social media connections are one strategy that can be applied. 

All are welcome to use the library and strategies I've shared.  I'd be happy to help coach any teams through the learning process.


Find me on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook and Mastodon and maybe on Discord, too. See links here.


If you can help fund Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC, please visit this page and send some support. 



Sunday, January 29, 2023

We can help kids through school, but can we keep them safe from racism?

The nation is once again shocked by a Black man being murdered by police. This time it was in Nashville, Tennessee.   Below is one of many Tweets that have prompted this post. If you have spent any time on this blog over the past 17 years you've seen this graphic, or a version of it.


This shows the goal of organized, volunteer-based tutor, mentor and learning programs, that operate in non-school hours out of neighborhood facilities, which help kids from high poverty areas move through school and into adult lives.  

If enough of these programs were available, in more places and consistently funded, constantly improving, etc., more kids would move through school without detours in the criminal justice system or in need of mental health support.

Here's a concept map that visualizes this same goal.  Note the text box in the lower left corner where I describe a role for volunteers who get involved as tutors and mentors.  


I've never believed that a single mentor can do everything needed to help a youth in high poverty area overcome all of the challenges they face growing up, which I've described in the concept map below. 

Yet I do believe a single volunteers can have a life changing impact.  It's just not predictable in what cases that will happen.  I know that the boy I first met in 1973 when he was in 4th grade says I had a huge impact on his life, but I know he had other people also helping him, including a strong mother.

I've seen countless stories over the past 30 years showing similar life changing mentoring and tutoring relationships.  

Here's what I'm struggling with.  Being Black in America puts you at risk, regardless of how successful you are in business, education, sports, etc.  

You can be running in a park, or driving down a street, and someone will single you out, just because of the color of your skin.  

One of the reasons I support volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs is that they can attract people who don't live in poverty, connect them in one-on-one, on-going relationships with kids who do live in poverty, then slowly educate them of the challenges kids and families face.  

This volunteer growth cycle visualizes that process. See it in this blog article


Every time you read about an act of violence or racism against people of color, I urge you to do homework to understand why that is happening and ways you can get involved to help prevent it from happening in the future.

Below are two graphics to consider:

Resource library - links to articles on race, poverty and inequality.  Click here to open

Connect people to this information.


I've used versions of this graphic for over 20 years.  In the middle, the blue box represents libraries of information such as the one I host, and the many that I point to from my library.  You can find many more through your own web searches. You can even build your own.

At the right is a map of Chicago, showing high poverty areas, where kids need extra help and where tutor/mentor programs are most needed.  At the left is a list showing all the people who could be using the information in our libraries to find ways to help kids and families in high poverty areas.

However, as I look at another act of police violence against a grown man, I realize that the is more learning to be done.  Be the YOU in this graphic.


Many of the articles in my library represent starting points in a life-long learning journey.  In this graphic the big circle represents libraries of information. The smaller circles represent groups of people meeting regularly to read small segments of that library and discuss what it means and how they can respond.  In concept its very similar to classroom learning in schools across the world, or to religious circles, where people read scripture and reflect on its meaning.

If you're a volunteer in an organized tutor and/or mentor program working with kids in elementary, middle or high school, start thinking of what future they will have beyond college, getting a job and starting a family.

What can you and people you know do to assure that none of them will be a victim of racial injustice at some point in the future?

I don't know the answer.

I do know that learning can lead to understanding and can show models of how others are trying to solve these problems. And that should stimulate your own thinking of how you, and people you know, can help make a difference.

While this article, and much of my work, focuses on Black youth, racism and hate extend to Asians, Indigenous, Latino and religious groups.  In every case, understanding why and innovating solutions starts with building (or accessing) a library of information.  I encourage others to create their own concept maps and blog articles to draw people to such libraries.  Send me a link to your library and I'll add it to mine.  


Thank you for reading.  Let's do more than "thoughts and prayers" for victims of racism and police violence.  

Sunday, August 01, 2021

How Many Youth Programs Are Needed?

Since 1993 the Tutor/Mentor Connection and Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC have tried to help comprehensive, mentor-rich, volunteer based youth programs grow in every high poverty neighborhood of Chicago and other cities. The graphic at the left visualizes this.

All of the articles on this blog since 2005 have focused on this goal.  They also focus on the graphic below.

This graphic is from a PDF presentation I wrote about in this article a few days ago. 

For every community area in Chicago planners need to look at the total number of youth, plus the percent who live in high poverty. In the example above, the 4178 number in the blue box is the number of kids, age 6-17, in poverty in one area. Below that is a number showing what percent of total kids this is in that neighborhood.

Green icons on my map are known youth serving organizations that provide various forms of volunteer-based tutoring and/or mentoring.  In almost every high poverty area there are too few programs based on the number of kids, but some neighborhoods have fewer than others.  In addition, some programs are much more sophisticated and well-organized than others.

In the article I wrote last week, I included maps showing 15 community areas considered "high priority" by the Chicago SunTimes, because of the high number of shootings and homicides in 2021.


Using this concept map anyone can open my list of programs, or view a list of programs operating in other cities. They can also use search engines provided by organizations like VolunteerMatch, to find youth serving organizations throughout the country.

Based on what an organization shows on their websites a volunteer, donor or parent should be able to decide to join or support an organization. At the same time, organizations should be able to look at what is offered by different programs to see if there are ideas they might borrow in their own program.

I said "should be able".  Just because a program is located near where a youth lives does not mean it has openings for additional youth.  You need to call and interview the program.  Furthermore, many programs don't provide much information showing their structure and types of services, so it's difficult to see if they are doing work another would want to duplicate.

But it's a start.  

Finally, as I said above, there are too few programs. Planners need to identify existing programs and develop on-going strategies to deliver talent and dollars to each, to help them constantly improve. Then they should determine where more are needed, and borrowing ideas from existing programs, start new ones.

The first question to ask is "Who is doing an analysis of my community area, and can I connect with them?  If the answer is "No one." then, the next question would be, "Who wants to be part of a group to begin this analysis?"


Thursday, July 29, 2021

Response to Chicago Violence: Do the Planning.


Growing violence in Chicago and other cities is prompting renewed calls for action.  The graphic at the left shows this is not a new problem. It dates back to 1992 and earlier.  If you've read many of the articles following shootings you've seen many calls for more non-school youth development and jobs programs.


This week I looked at a Chicago SunTimes web page titled "How Chicago's most violent neighborhoods are faring in 2021".  

This article featured 15 Chicago Community Areas, with a map and analysis such as you see in the graphic at the right.

I began using maps to show locations of non school, volunteer-based tutoring and/or mentoring programs in 1993 and to follow media stories about shootings, gangs, or poorly performing schools, with map stories that talked about the availability (or lack) of tutor/mentor programs in the area surrounding the incident.  

My goal has been that maps and the library of programs and research be used by leaders in business, government, colleges, hospitals, faith groups and government to fill high poverty neighborhoods with a wide range of  youth development and workforce development based tutor and mentor programs.

If leaders had embraced these strategies for the past 25  years the maps of the 15 neighborhoods profiled by the Chicago SunTimes would look far different.

I created a set of slides to look beyond the map analysis provided by the SunTimes.  I'm showing a couple below, and the entire presentation below that.

The North Lawndale Community area was ranked as the "deadliest priority neighborhood".  In my presentation I show the maps from the SunTimes at the top left, then a map of this neighborhood, from the Tutor/Mentor Programs map you can find in this article.  Green icons on the map are programs included in the T/MI directory. Click on the icon to get the name and website of each program.


On the T/MI map there is a blue box, showing the number of youth, age 6-17, considered "below poverty line". This is 2018 information provided by the Social Impact Research Center of the Heartland Alliance and is shown in this T/MI presentation.   I provide a brief summary showing the availability of programs and the number of youth in the area.  In the example I say "If there are three programs that each serve 50 youth regularly each week, totaling 150, and there are 2000 total youth in poverty in the area out of a larger number of total youth which could be double that, then the neighborhood clearly has a need for more programs.

Furthermore, if you look at the location of programs and the location of incidents of violence, you can see that while the neighborhood's existing programs reach some youth, they may not reach youth in different parts of the community area.  This is especially true if youth are unable to go safely from one part of the area to another because they would be crossing gang territories.

Here's another neighborhood: This is West Englewood.  I don't show any non-school tutor/mentor programs in this area (based on what I have in my database).  There are more than 2500 low income kids in the area, thus programs certainly would be a benefit.


My goal is that planning teams, consisting of all community stakeholders, including businesses, local schools, political leaders, media, etc., take part in this process, using my maps and the SunTimes maps, as a starting point (note, the Chicago Tribune, New York Times, and other media are also resources for these types of maps).  

There may be more youth serving programs in the area, offering different formats of support.  There may be programs serving one age level, such as elementary school, but no programs for middle school and high school.  My map does not show the multiple sites of some larger organizations, such as Big Brothers Big Sisters, nor does it show community-based mentoring matches.  

I've used this graphic for many years showing the need for a continuum of programs, support youth from birth-to-work, or for 20 years or longer.  Think of this as a blueprint for building a new skyscraper. On each page diagrams show a range of talent needed to accomplish the work on that page. Then the next page shows what work comes next, with what talent is needed.

Planning for each community area needs to create similar blueprints then action plans that generate resources and talent to make such programs available to a growing number of k-12 youth in the area. Such blueprints would show existing programs, the age group they serve, and the type of service provided.

From 1994 until 2011 my organization's survey attempted to segment programs by these categories. The image at the right shows a program locator built in 2004 (No longer active. View archive.) that you could use to determine what programs were in different zip codes.  The code for this could be a starting point for building a newer searchable program locator. 


Who else could be helping?  In the West Englewood area, where there are no programs shown, there are potential allies.   Below is a map view created using the Chicago Public School Locator.  


Western Avenue runs North to South along the West side of this community area. The map shows several auto dealerships and other businesses.  Each dealership is part of a lager corporate network, thus involvement of someone from a dealership on Western Avenue could provide access to financial and talent support from the corporate headquarters!  

I've only shown two out of 15 high priority community areas highlighted by the Chicago Sun Times.

To see the others, view this Slideshare presentation.  

If you are concerned about the quality of life and high poverty in these 15 community areas, or others where there also are huge needs for non-school youth support programs, then use this information and other resources that I share on the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC website to build a planning team, dig deeper into the information, create your own maps, and begin to work to fill your community area with world-class youth programs.

This article is one of more than 1000 that have been posted since 2005, focusing on this same topic. There's too much for most people to dig through if they're not willing to spend the time. However, if you consider this blog and the T/MI website as a "book" or a "curriculum" then it might not be so daunting to read a little at a time, then discuss what you read with others in your network.

I'd be happy to help you think through what you are reading.  Connect with me on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and/or LinkedIn. (see links here). 

If you value what I'm sharing please consider a contribution to help fund the work.  

If you'd like to take a larger role and help rebuild the library and mapping platforms, or duplicate the process in your own community, let's connect.


Monday, November 30, 2020

Violence in Chicago. The Rest of the Story

Below is a screen shot from today's Chicago SunTimes, of a story about the high homicide rate in the 11th Police District of Chicago. The map shows where this district is in the city and shows that high levels of violence are mostly in the SW and NE side of the district, along with a section just East of Garfield Park.


Since 1993 when starting the Tutor/Mentor Connection (T/MC)  in Chicago I've tried to help comprehensive, non-school tutor, mentor and learning programs grow in all high poverty areas. I've maintained a database of such programs since then and developed what I call "The Rest of the Story" strategy to draw attention to programs in neighborhoods featured in local newspapers because of bad things that happen there.  

So today, I created a second graphic, using the SunTimes map, along with a screen shot from a Tutor/Mentor Program map that I launched in 2016.  It's shown below.


You can find my Chicago area map and my list of programs in this blog article.  I zoomed into the same area as shown on the SunTimes map, then created a screenshot.  On my map I show seven green icons, representing youth serving programs. Enlarge my graphic and you can see their names. 

It looks like there is only one youth organization, The Off The Street club in the lower left section and none in the upper right. There's a YMCA along Holman Avenue near Augusta, just outside of the high violence area in the NE corner of the map.  There are three programs in the SE part of the district and one to the far East.  

In 2018 I  used data from the Heartland Alliance to create a set of maps showing the number of high poverty youth age 6-17 living in each community area. The image below shows the West side of Chicago, including the 11th Police District.  There are about 9500 high poverty kids in the area  (and about 20,000 in total). The percent shown in the blue boxes represents what percent that number is of the total youth population in the area. 


I first created this report in 2011, so the numbers shown in yellow boxes are from then. The blue boxes are from 2018, thus you can see changes in population.


Last month I posted a story using the map at the left, emphasizing that commuters using Chicago's expressways or trains to come and go from the LOOP to the suburbs are riding right past high poverty neighborhoods.  

I've long encouraged people in these areas to work together to build public awareness campaigns that would motivate these people to spend time getting to know about the neighborhood, and its need for youth serving organizations, and showing the ones that already exist.  Then pick one or two and make a long-term commitment to help them be the best in the world at helping kids through school and into jobs.

Below is a map story created in the mid 1990s for a group on the West side of Chicago. I've highlighted in yellow the section where I encouraged them to set up a campaign along Grand Avenue that would attract commuter volunteers.  I've been preaching this story for many years.

However, too few have ever seen my map-stories or my blog.  Yet, youth from schools all over the Chicago region could be creating "Rest of the Story" strategy, following negative news they see in the local media.  In publishing their stories they could be adding their "call to action" to my own and those of others, resulting in greater visibility, and a greater flow of dollars to help youth programs grow where they are most needed.

The Mayor, the Police Department, local politicians, businesses, faith groups, universities, etc. all could have been doing this for the past 25 years.

If they had, maybe the story about the 11th Police District in today's paper would have been different.

If they start now, maybe those stories will be different in 10 or 20 years.

I'd be happy to help anyone think through this strategy.  I'm on Twitter and these social media platforms.  

If you value the stories and program list that I share please consider a small year-end contribution.  Click here to learn more. 

Tuesday, January 21, 2020

A New Call To Action from Chicago Tribune

Chicago Forward - Chicago Tribune
A couple of weeks ago the Chicago Tribune launched a  new call to action to reach Chicagoland's disconnected youth, inviting reader ideas.

I've been responding to these "calls to action" for more than 25 years with ideas and strategies posted in my newsletters, web sites and on this blog.  Instead of re-writing all this again, like some sort of narrow grant proposal, I invite city planners to skim through the information that has been available to them for so long, then invite me into their brainstorming and planning where I can help them understand it and ways to apply it.

I shared this with Bruce Dold and the Chicago Tribune on a few Tweets which I'm showing below:



Since October 2019 I've been attending meetings hosted by Mayor Lori Lightfoot's team, which is developing a plan that also aims to reach youth throughout Chicago. Here's one Tweet that I posted.



Here's another one where I focus on the long-term, flexible funding needed to support youth serving programs in every high poverty neighborhood. This needs to be part of the planning.



Here's a Tweet that focuses on the talent needed in every single youth program.



Here's another Tweet, visualizing the many challenges facing youth and families in high poverty areas. Just focusing on providing youth programs won't address the many other issues.


I've been using Maps since 1993 to focus attention and resources to all high poverty areas of Chicago and its suburbs. Here's one Tweet showing that.



Finally, here's one where I show the Tutor/Mentor Program Locator search page, which the Tutor/Mentor Connection launched in 2004. Prior to that we had shared our list of programs via a printed directory, first published in 1994.



This is just a sample of the information available to the planners at the Chicago Tribune, Chicago SunTimes, City of Chicago and other places. There's so much here that included in any planning needs to be a focus on learning.

Below is a video showing steps to learning all this information, created by one of the interns from South Korea via IIT who worked with me from 2006 to 2015.



One of my Tweets posted above shows the front page of the October 15 Chicago SunTimes, which also was a call to action. This is a deeply rooted problem that requires involvement of many sectors, in many ways, and for many years.

The media and city leaders need to take on the intermediary role that I've consistently taken, to encourage others to look at this information, discuss it, then incorporate what they learn in actions that make birth to work youth tutor/mentor programs available in every high poverty area of the city and suburbs.

I'm on Twitter, Linkedin, and Facebook where I hope to connect with others who will help share these ideas, while adding their own.



Saturday, December 21, 2019

What I Wish for Christmas

Earlier this week there was a feature editorial in the Chicago Tribune, "demanding commitment from every Chicagoan" following the senseless murder of 16-year-old Angie Monroy.  It reminded me of similar editorials in past years, and prompted me to create the graphic below.

Media demand action. Why too little result?
At the left is the front page from the October 15, 1992 Chicago SunTimes, which prompted myself and 6 other volunteers to create the Tutor/Mentor Connection, with a goal of creating more consistent attention to draw needed operating resources to every youth tutor mentor and learning program in the Chicago region.  At the right is the Chicago Tribune editorial from December 18, 2019.

telling "rest of the story"


We began building a database of Chicago tutor/mentor programs in 1994 and started using maps to create stories following negative news, attempting to draw attention, volunteers and donors directly to the affected neighborhoods....and to others in the city with similar problems.  I wrote about this strategy in this article.

Unfortunately our ability to distribute our maps widely was limited by our budget and the existing technologies of the 1990s.

The Internet changed this.  We started putting our list of programs on-line in 1998 and launched an interactive program locator in 2004, which was updated in 2008.

shooting in Chicago

From 2008 to 2010 we received funding that enabled us to have a map-maker on staff for 20 hours a week.  This enabled us to create sophisticated-looking maps like the one at the right, which is part of this map gallery collection.

We were able to put these in blog articles, email newsletters and on web sites, but still were limited in how many people were seeing them due to continued lack of funding.

shooting in Chicago

The financial meltdown starting in 2008 resulted in loosing funding, then having the T/MC split off in mid 2011 from the non-profit where it started. I created Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC to try to keep the T/MC operating.  However, I've not found a source of funding or consistent volunteer help for the map-making.

Yet, I've continued to create map stories, such as the one shown above, which you can see in articles tagged "violence" and "media" on this blog. 

While I've continued to share these via email newsletters, blog articles and social media, they still don't reach enough people. In addition, the Program Locator data has not been updated since 2013, and the main site has not been updated since 2008.  Again, due to lack of funds and tech support.

So, what's my Christmas wish?  Here's another graphic that I created this week.

mobilizing my network
Facebook Friends 2012
I celebrated my 73rd birthday and on Facebook received much appreciated "Happy Birthday" greetings from nearly 100 people. 

At the top left in the graphic above is a network analysis map showing my Facebook friends in 2012. The labels on the clusters show that they include former students and volunteers from the tutor/mentor programs I've led, members of my Illinois Wesleyan Acacia college fraternity, family members concentrated around Philadelphia and spread in other parts of the country, non-profit and community leaders in Chicago and the USA, and social entrepreneurs from Europe and the rest of the world.  If I updated that graphic today it would show the same groups but also show a cluster of Connected Learning educators (#clmooc) who I've been connecting with since 2013.  You can view the SNA map in greater detail in this PDF.



I could have used this "bombs bursting in air" graphic instead of the "change the world" graphic in the  upper right. The imply the same thing.  As I launch articles on my blog or web site I'm trying to motivate others to spread those to people in their own networks.

In a conversation this week with one alumni I wrote of seeking younger people to carry on the work I'm doing, she responded "I wish I had the capacity to take on more than just mentoring on Mondays. At the moment I am doing what I can."

I responded "Just posting stories saying you are mentoring, and adding a link to where you volunteer, you are taking a greater role.  Just think "Are there ways my stories might motivate others to get involved?" It doesn't take much time, or have to be done daily. But consistency over time leads others to build their own involvement."

map your network

We all have networks. Most of us don't spend time segmenting our network into family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, etc. then look for ways to tell them "I'm involved", yet if more people did that on a regular basis, more people would be giving time, talent and dollars to support youth tutor, mentor and learning programs and that might reduce the number who get involved with gangs and end up on the wrong end of a gun.

I've been sharing this graphic since the 1990s, first with the volunteers and board of directors of the tutor/mentor program I led. 

volunteer involvement form
of service learning
A key part of the ideas I'm sharing is an effort to get more people personally involved, with time, talent and dollars.

At the left is a graphic and video created by interns from Hong Kong (2007) and South Korea (2011) to visualize how a volunteer involved in a tutor/mentor program learns from her service and can influence others if she shares what she is learning in a consistent way.

This has been a long article, but imagine if more people had adopted these ideas in 1993 and continued to expand the network of people involved for the past 26 years. 

I've been writing articles and describing what I'm trying to do for many years.  If you've read this far and want to learn more, spend a little time every day clicking into the tags at the left, then reading some of the articles. As you do, find a way to share what you're reading with your network.

Start with looking at articles in "master plan" and "A new TMC"

If you want to talk about ways you can help, just reach out to me on one of these social media platforms.

Enjoy your holidays and best wishes to all in 2020.


Monday, August 26, 2019

Yummy's Story. New for You? Not for me.

Did you see this editorial in yesterday's Chicago Tribune?   I created the graphic at the left so I could talk about it in this article. I shared it on Twitter with this Tweet (open to view).

It's the story of an 11-year-old Chicago boy murdered 25 years ago in August 1994.  While the story might be new to you, it is not new to me. 

I've been collecting news clips of stories like this for nearly 30 years in an effort to mobilize more consistent attention and resources to help prevent kids from becoming victims of poverty and inequality. 

So I looked in my files to see what I had. Below are just a few of a series of 1994 stories.

This was the front page of the Chicago SunTimes on September 2, 1994 as media started to try to build an understanding of why this happened.


This is the front page of the Chicago Tribune on August 25, 1994.  The image from this story was used in yesterday's editorial.


67 kids were slain in Chicago in 1994 according to a Chicago Tribune story from January 1, 1995.  I put that story into the graphic below to highlight where Yummy Sandifer was on the list and where in Chicago his killing took place....in the Roseland area on the far South Side of Chicago.

 
I had created the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993 and our goal was to help draw volunteers, donors and ideas to non-school tutor/mentor programs in Chicago, using a four-part strategy that you can see on this page. Step 1 was an information collection strategy, which included building a list of non-school tutor/mentor programs in Chicago. In 1994 we started trying to use maps to show this information and map-stories to try to draw attention to different areas following media stories. 

Below is a map created in August 1994 to highlight the Roseland area where this shooting took place.  Over the next 25 years our maps became more sophisticated yet the purpose remained the same.


If you look at the January 1, 1995 Chicago Tribune story shown above, you'll see at the right that they point to places where people could volunteer.  Unfortunately they did not point to the Tutor/Mentor Connection and the Directory that we had first published in May 1994 or the conference that we held that May.  (They did do a story in May 1994 about the conference, but did not tie these together). 

If you view this list you can see a long list of articles where local media did try to tell what the Tutor/Mentor Connection was trying to do. Unfortunately these were far fewer after 2001. We tried to overcome that with a growing use of the Internet.

While yesterday's Chicago Tribune editorial focused on the Yummy Sandifer story the Chicago SunTimes did a story showing changes of demographics in Chicago, caused by a growing number of college graduates moving into the city.  Below are the maps featured in this story, along with maps from a WBEZ story that I used in a "Don't Drive By Poverty. Get Involved." story.


I've been using maps in stories for 25 years, in my print newsletters, on my web sites, email newsletters and blog articles.  If you read the stories about kids in poor schools, kids in gangs, kids in poverty and kids killing each other, and look at maps showing where these are taking place, you begin to understand that there is a need for solutions in many parts of the city.

Here's another map-story that has driven my efforts. This is from 1994, showing more than 240,000 kids in poverty. If you look at the shaded areas they are pretty much the same areas as we're looking at in 2019. Yet, there are changes, too. 


What a map is intended to provoke are questions of "How do we reach all of these kids with great programs?" How do we help these programs stay connected to kids from the years they start school till they are adults with jobs able to raise their own kids free of poverty?  How do we change the funding systems that make long-term programs so difficult to operate?"

Below is just one of many graphics I've included in blog articles and newsletters. How can we do this better?  How do we bring leaders from every sector into this conversation and keep them involved for many years.  How do we build birth to work programs reaching kids in every poverty area? How do we collect and report data that shows what programs are operating, where they are and what they do, so we can know that we really are reaching kids in all places where they are needed.

This "how to do it better" conversation needs to be taking place in many sectors.

As you look at graphics like this, where I show maps and the "mentoring kids to careers" graphic, also look at concept maps like the one below.

Kids in every neighborhood need ALL of these supports - view map

For any number of reasons I've not had the magic formula for drawing leaders to this information and motivating them to use it.  Nor have I been able to attract consistent funding, or a significant benefactor who would champion the Tutor/Mentor Connection.

What I started 25  years ago has left many footprints that others could follow, but as we enter 2020 I don't have any resources to go beyond maintaining an information base and posting articles like this to build on stories I see in the media and try to stimulate more strategic thinking by more people.

In the graphic above where I show the SunTimes maps I also put a small graphic of a bridge. If you look at the maps you see colors representing rich and poor sections of Chicago.  Volunteer-based tutor, mentor and learning programs can be islands of hope and opportunity that serve as bridges that connect people from both backgrounds in mutually beneficial ways.

Such programs need to be identified, supported and multiplied so they are in every high poverty neighborhood.

If you want to help me keep writing these articles visit this page and make a contribution. 

Or, better yet, reach out and start a conversation. Hire me to be a consultant to share these ideas with you and your planning team.

Or help create a Tutor/Mentor Connection at one of Chicago's colleges, so student researchers can dig into my files and pull out more stories that might motivate people to do what has not been done in the past 30 years: 

Build a system of school and community support that really does reach kids and families in every poverty neighborhood.

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