Helping At Risk Students Connect

[Nancy White]

I am new to this community and still exploring the work that the Tutor/Mentor Connection does to help at-risk students. It occured to me that one group I have been working with has a similar mission: Junior Achievement. http://www.ja.org/

In Colorado Springs, Junior Achievement conducts a 21st Century Skills Forum attended by students enrolled in the AVID program (http://www.avid.org/) from multiple school districts. Student are inspired by business community members and innovators, get to see different career fields and have an opportunity to see 21st century skills at work. I don't think this one day event is enough, however, and have been trying to share some ideas on how to expand this, I would love for students to have the opportunity to form relationships, thus putting these presenters in the role of tutor/mentor and allowing the students to correspond and network witih them, perhaps visit their workplace, or at least tap into the multiple Web 2.0 tools such as wikis and Skype to continue learning and exploring career possibilities and establish relationships. Any ideas you all might have to move these ideas forward would be most welcome!

[Daniel Bassill]

Hi Nancy,  if the JA people are open to it you could suggest that one of the on-going JA projects would be for students working with volunteer mentors to review the ideas and strategies I've posted and then to communicate those ideas back to JA and Colorado Springs as strategies that would reach more kids with age-appropriate supports and on-going mentoring.  The JA students could join this group or create a new group.  Here's another place where I present this idea.