During a Public Policy Forum hosted in Chicago on 1/24/07, maps were  used to show the changing population trends and their implications for future services.  The research was created by the Chapin Hall Center for Children.  The T/MC has used maps for many years to show poverty demographics and locations of poorly performing schools as an indicator of need for tutor/mentor programs. The T/MC Program Locator includes a Map Gallery, and a searchable database that visitors can use to shop for programs in different parts of the Chicago region.

However, we've also built a GIS links library, with links to different organizations in the Chicago region and nationally who are using maps to create a better understanding of poverty as the root cause of many other social issues.  During the meeting today I invited the 300-plus participants to use the GIS links on our web site as a resource in their own planning and networking. In addition, I invited them to add additional links, showning other sites that use maps to provide a spatial understanding of important social issues.  I also invited people to tell share information about forums where people are using maps to share information, network and collaborate, so that all children in the Chicago region have equal opportunities for an education and a life out of poverty.

Finally, if you know of people who blog the issues that were discussed in today's forum, add your link to the T/MC links library or introduce this resource in the comments section of the Tutor/Mentor Blog.

I look for every opportunity to connect with others and share ideas that lead to better support for volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs. Thus, the Non Profit Blog Exchange is something I've participated in for a couple of years.

This time, I'm paired up with the Smart Communities blog.  The idea of the blog exchange is that it introduces strangers to each other, who might not take the time to learn about each other if not matched in the blog exchange.  I visited the Smart Communities blog a few days ago and found out that it has lots of good information that visitors to the Tutor/Mentor Connection site would value. I wrote about it on my own tutor/mentor blog.

I think blogs are a great way to tell the story of what happens in a tutor/mentor program, and blog exchanges can build greater visibility for all tutor/mentor programs.  If you write a blog about tutoring/mentoring, please introduce yourself. You can post a comment on the tutor/mentor blog or  you can introduce your blog in the discussion forums on this site.  During May/June, when we host the next Tutor/Mentor Conference, I'd like to see many writers using blogs to expand on the topics of the conference and to engage more people from around the globe in our efforts to build and sustain comprehensive volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs.