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However, the chart on this blog article shows that while parents, educators, tutor/mentor programs and others are "PUSHING" youth to careers, we need industry to "PULL", using their employee-volunteers, their jobs, their technology, and their dollars. We need "scorecards" that show which businesses, faith groups, hospitals and universities are doing better than others. Read most current blog article in distributing their help into neighborhoods where they do business, or get tax breaks, or draw workers. We need to be able to visit business web sites and learn what they are doing to help youth to careers, and how others can duplicate successful efforts in one location to help youth and families in other locations. HOW DO WE MAKE THIS HAPPEN?What are all the things that need to happen to make a comprehensive volunteer-based tutor/mentor program available in every poverty neighborhood of every city? What do we know already? Where are affinity groups meeting to discuss the needs, the solutions and actions individuals and organizations might take. Browse the articles in of the Tutor/Mentor Institute and see how maps can be used to promote business and university involvement in different neighborhoods with the same strategy that companies use to place new stores in areas where there are potential customers. Look at the leadership, collaboration and communications strategies and see how companies can encourage employee involvement, as part of their own workforce development strategies. Visit the Links on the T/MC site and read why tutor/mentor programs are important for business leaders, and where they are most needed. WHAT ARE THE STEPS A LEADER MIGHT TAKE?
While no business or foundation can not fund every charity, or operate more than a few programs,great tutor/mentor programs are needed in every high poverty neighborhood. The articles on this web site suggest simple steps leaders can take to lead the mobilization of volunteers and resources for comprehensive mentoring-to-career programs. WHAT PROGRESS HAVE WE MADE?Visit the links in the sidebar and judge for yourself. We have a library of programs, a growing capacity to produce maps that show where programs are located and who else in an area could be helping. We have a growing library of links to research and promising practices. In the OHATS web site we have documented more than 1200 actions that illustrate what steps we have taken to make the T/MC vision a reality. This web site and www.tutormentorconnection.org demonstrates a growing ability to organize this information into categories and "hubs". The www.tutormentorconference.org demonstrates a growing ability to get people together from time to time to share their knowledge and build connections with each other. WHAT CAN YOU DO TO HELP?However, what you see also demonstrates a need for more help and more sophistication in each area. That's where you come in. Volunteer your time, your dollars, your talent to help. Visit the Discussions link and join one of the groups working to build capacity. Read about the Tutor/Mentor Learning Network and help us locate HUBS who are already building libraries of knowledge and trying to build public participation in sharing, learning and applying this knowledge in more places and with more skill. Add your organization as a link to the resource pages. Send us an email and offer ways we can work together to build this network of knowledge. Add a link to this site from your own web site.
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Every year the major papers have headlines reporting that 75% of Chicago elementary schools were being put on a "watch list" because of poor student learning performance. Editorials call for more accountability. Business leaders call for better results. However, few are calling for more accountability from our business, professional and media leaders.