PIPblog: Cabrini Connections- Tutor/Mentor Connections: PIP and P55 Seminar at Cabrini Connections, The Tutor/Mentor Connection

This Wednesday, PIP and P55 fellows from Princeton, Northwestern, University of Chicago and Colorado College will be taking a break from the daily grind at their respective non-profits/community organizations to find out a bit about what we do here at Cabrini Connections, The Tutor/Mentor Connection. So, I thought that I would provide a road map to our discussion here on my blog with the links that we plan on referring to during our presentation, so that interested fellows can easily find and share the information we present with others or return to articles/web sites that they find particularly interesting.

I kick things off by talking about a bit of our history which can be found on the www.cabriniconnections.net website if you click on the "about us" tab on the left side of the page.

A detailed organizational history can be found here.

I continue on to discuss our strategy for making a life-changing difference in the lives of youth living all across the city and how that manifests itself at both a local and a global level, making use of some graphics found on our www.tutormentorexchange.net site, which is an information hub that helps build a convergence of ideas and strategies, resulting in constantly improving tutor/mentor programs being available to more youth in high-poverty neighborhoods.

This pdf essay explains the logic of the Tutor/Mentor Connection.

Next, former PIP fellow and Tutor/Mentor Connection Coordinator, Nicole White discusses our four-part strategy for accomplishing this mission.

1) Collect knowledge from key stakeholders about volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs: how programs succeed, where programs are located, and where more programs and resources are needed.

2) Aggressively share this knowledge through marketing and public awareness campaigns, capitalizing on the Internet as a chief vehicle of communication.

3) Strengthen involvement of community and industry leaders to increase essential resources to tutor/mentor programs.

4) Facilitate understanding and collaboration among stakeholders to develop the long-term, integrated actions needed to help youths move from birth in poverty to a job or career by age 25.