Tutor/Mentor NEWS

[Daniel Bassill]

Tutor/Mentor Connection NEWS: Building an Army of Support for 
Tutoring/Mentoring Programs
Linking ideas, programs and people to help inner city kids.  A Program of 
Cabrini Connections.

January 12, 2004

T/MC REPORT ON-LINE, Issue #15

In This Issue:=20
National Mentoring Month draws volunteers to mentoring programs 
Tutor/Mentor Leadership Conference in Chicago
Funding success by National Mentoring Partnership Recommended Reading 
On-Line Volunteer and Donor Resources Editorial - It takes more than 
volunteers.

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<p>National Mentoring Month
For the third consecutive year, the Harvard Mentoring Project of the 
Harvard School of Public Health and MENTOR/National Mentoring Partnership 
are spearheading the development of the January National Mentoring Month. 
Learn more about this year's activities at http://www.WhoMentoredYou.org

Fall 2003 Tutor/Mentor Leadership Conference update
More than 150 people from tutor/mentor programs in Chicago, Maine, Oregon, 
California, Indiana, Wisconsin, Tennessee and Michigan joined together On 
November 20 and 21, 2003 to share information, network and build 
collaboration among individual programs.   The goal of the T/MC is that 
the conference stimulates ideas and introduces leaders to others who can 
help them build strong tutor/mentor programs.  Descriptions of workshops 
are posted at http://www.tutormentorconference.bigstep.com. Most speakers can be contacted via these descriptions. We encourage you 
to use this information to continue sharing ideas during the months 
between each Tutor/Mentor Leadership Conference.

May 2004 Conference
We're pleased to announce that the John and Frances Beck Foundation has 
approved a grant to fund a March 2004 newsletter and part of Spring 2004 
Tutor/Mentor Leadership Conference.    The focus this spring will be on 
"tutoring reading".  Articles in the March newsletter, which reaches more 
than 8,000 readers, and workshops in the May 2004 conference will focus on 
various tutoring strategies that can be used by tutor/mentor programs to 
tutor reading skills.  With the March newsletter we will distribute FREE 
copies of a brochure titled "Tutoring Reading", written by Keith Topping 
for the International Academy of Education.  ( If you would like to 
receive a FREE copy of this brochure, please contact Shary Rubin at 
srubin4 at uic.edu.) If you would like to be on the mail list to receive the 
printed Tutor/Mentor Report Newsletter and an invitation to the May 2004 
Conference (www.tutormentorconference.bigstep.com), please email your name 
and mailing address to tutormentor2 at earthlink.net.

While we do not yet have a date or location finalized, we are now 
accepting proposals for workshop presentations for the May 2004 
conference, and advertising in the March 2004 Tutor/Mentor Report 
Newsletter. Details can be found at http://ww.tutormentorconference.bigstep.com web site.   If your organization has had success in tutoring reading 
please consider submitting a proposal, or forwarding a description of your 
program, with a web site address, that we might include in the March 2004 
newsletter.

Monthly tutor/mentor Training Workshops at Tutor/Mentor Connection Center 
in Chicago. =20
Beginning in February the T/MC will again offer 3-hour single-topic 
training workshops.  If you would like to present a workshop, please email 
tutormentor2 at earthlink.net    Scheduled workshops will be posted at http://www.tutormentorconference.bigstep.com

National Mentoring Partnership funding success
In a major success for the mentoring community, Congress is set to 
dramatically increase federal funding for mentoring grants to $100 
million. MENTOR worked in partnership with mentoring organizations across 
the country
to effectively advocate for the increase.  Local mentoring organizations 
worked at the grassroots level, while MENTOR and other national partners, 
including notably Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, executed the "on 
the ground advocacy" working directly with congressional offices.  This 
success is all the more noteworthy since it occurred during a year in 
which funding to many federal programs declined or remained level.  MENTOR 
and its partners deserves thanks from all mentoring stakeholders for their 
work in making this funding happen.  Read more at http://mentoring.org.

Recommended reading -
Most tutor/mentor programs are nearing mid-year and staff and volunteers 
are searching for new ideas for mentoring, motivating, tutoring and 
building life skills.  This is an ideal time for programs to engage 
volunteers, yout= h
and stakeholders in an internet learning process aimed at energizing each 
program.=20

The links shown below are just a few that you can find at the T/MC's http://www.tutormentorconnection.org web site.  Each link is a doorway tohundreds of additional ideas that can 
be used to build stronger and more
effective tutor/mentor programs.

MATHCOUNTS offers a variety of inspiration and information that 
afterschool programs might use to improve student skills in mathematics. http://mathcounts.org/

Eisenhower National Clearninghouse (ENC) - recognized as one of the best 
educational web sites that are targeted toward learners. 
=A0http://www.enc.org

Educating.net is an education portal for all quality educational services 
on the Internet, including distance education, homeschooling, K-12, 
college & university, professional re-training, continuing education, fun 
learning and more. =A0http://www.educating.net

Peer Resources.  This is Canada's Leading Authority on Peer Program 
Development and Mentoring for Schools and Business.  Subscribe to the 
monthly email newsletter. =A0http://www.peer.ca/peer.html

Youth Life Skills. This web site provides ideas, creative activities, and 
different approaches to use with youth programs. Its resources will help 
you organize and implement life skill training sessions, teen conferences, 
youth
leadership training, mentoring projects, and independent living programs. http://youthlifeskills.nrcys.ou.edu/

National Youth Development: Information Center -=A0This site provides 
links to evaluation, research, policy, funding, program development and 
more. T/MC encourages visitors to read the report titled Moving an 
Out-of-School Agenda: Lessons and Challenges Across Cities that can be 
downloaded from this site. =A0=A0http://www.nydic.org

The Forum for Youth Investment (formerly IYF-US) is a national initiative 
dedicated to increasing the quality and quantity of youth investment and 
youth involvement in the United States by promoting a "big picture" 
approach to planning and policy development. The web site offers extensive 
links to resources that any stakeholder can use to build a stronger 
network of long-term mentoring-to-career programs. Look for the discussion 
paper, Powerful Pathways, in the publications section. http://www.forumforyouthinvestment.org

National Center for Student Aspirations - Read about the Eight Conditions 
that Make a Difference!=A0 in the lives of students. 
=A0http://www.studentaspirations.org

Tutor/Mentor Institute - Read power point essays that illustrate 
strategies for building and sustaining tutor/mentor programs in big cities 
like Chicago. =20
http://www.tutormentorexchange.net/Partner/CC/Presentations/CC_presentations_home_page.htm

Evaluation resources - The Harvard Family Research Project has a new 
resource in the out-of-school time section of its web site -- a 
bibliography of all the evaluations of out-of-school time programs that 
they are currently tracking. These are categorized by program type so you 
can just see the entries that are likely to be of use to you. You can 
access the bibliography or read more about it at:
http://www.gse.harvard.edu/hfrp/projects/afterschool/bibliography/index.html

<p>Volunteer and Donor On-line Resources
Business can support tutoring/mentoring programs that connect youth with 
adult support systems by encouraging employees to make payroll deduction 
contributions to local or national tutor/mentor programs.   Following are 
on-line resources that can help volunteers and donors learn about such 
programs in Chicago or beyond:

State of Illinois - Volunteerism & Community Service http://www.illinois.gov/volunteer/
Chicago's Community Resource Network http://www.chicagovolunteer.net
http://www.ServeNet.org
http://www.volunteermatch.org
http://www.NetworkforGood.org

Editorial:  Comprehensive, on-going tutoring/mentoring needs more than 
volunteers The Tutor/Mentor Connection is a proud supporter of the 
National Mentoring Month campaign. However we are also an advocate for 
more comprehensive forms of tutoring and mentoring that lead youth from 
poverty to careers. The maps and charts in various sections of the http://www.tutormentorexchange.net website illustrate our thinking.

The biggest challenge most mentoring and tutoring programs face is a lack 
of sustained funding, a lack of trained leaders and a continuity in the 
mentoring workforce,  and the lack of business partners who see Total 
Quality Mentoring as an essential workforce development and diversity 
strategy. =20

Without support for the infrastructure of on-going tutoring/mentoring 
programs, many volunteers who come forward during campaigns such as 
National Mentoring Month will be poorly supported, or will not even be 
able to find a placement, meaning many will drop out, or not be able to 
connect to children and youth who need there help.  In big cities like 
Chicago, many neighborhoods where kids need these programs have few or no 
sites where volunteers and kids can connect.  Maps at the http://www.tutormentorexchange.net web site illustrate how few programs there are in most poverty 
neighborhoods of Chicago.

We hope that the companies who have come forward to support this year's 
National Mentoring Month, as well as efforts like Business Strengthening 
America and America's Promise, will form year-round strategies that draw 
visibility, volunteers and dollars to one-on-one tutor/mentor programs in 
every poverty neighborhood of cities where they do business.   The http://www.verizonreads.org web site is a great example of how a company funded web site can draw 
volunteers into hundreds of literacy programs throughout the nation.  We'd 
like to see similar corporate sites promoting tutoring/mentoring 
strategies.

The result of such strategies will be a more consistent flow and 
distribution of critically-needed resources to every tutor/mentor program, 
and into every neighborhood with poverty or poorly-performing schools, and 
ultimately, a pipeline of youth coming from these schools and into 
careers. If your company or community would like help from the 
Tutor/Mentor Connection to develop such a strategy email 
tutormentor2 at earthlink.net

----Dr. Daniel F. Bassill, President, CEO of Cabrini Connections and the 
Tutor/Mentor Connection

Please forward this e-newsletter to all friends, family, colleagues and
business partners who want to help youth born in poverty get the adult
support they need to be entering jobs and careers by age 25.
___________________________________________________________________________ 

The T/MC Report is distributed on a regular basis via e-mail. If you would
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lives and potential of young people.

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