Brad, I'm in Chicago and lead the Tutor/Mentor Connection. Have you visited the Center for Mental Health in Schools at UCLA? http://smhp.psych.ucla.edu/ Theyhave lots of good information that you might be interested in.

I host links to web sites like this on the T/MC site, which is intended to support the growth of volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs in high poverty areas. You might find some information on our site of value as well.

The Challenge Program addresses an important area of youth development. The Challenge is getting people to integrate this into their own activities, and then to teach kids to use it.

As a non profit leader, I see the value, but don't have the money to purchase it, and would need to have someone on my staff become excited about it, before it would be integrated into what we do.

As the leader of the Tutor/Mentor Connection, I see the value of this in hundreds of site based tutor/mentor programs and I try to think of ways to make it easier for programs to build it into their activities. That means I look for ways to lower the costs to the program, as well as to expand the staff time needed to assure effective use of the program in the non profit.

One way to lower cost is for the application to be free, but this is not possible since the developer is trying to earn an income. The only other way to make it free to donors is to enlist sponsors (business or philanthropy) who cover the costs of distributing the application to multiple locations. That would solve one program.

However, it does not solve the manpower issue. Can we recruit college students who are studying youth development, psychology, communications, etc. to be volunteers in youth programs, with the expertise to train staff, volunteers and youth do use the application? This would expand the staff at the non profit, and also solve the problem of "ownership" of the idea within the non profit.

I encourage you to share these comments on your blog, and in other places where you network so that the sponsor and the manpower might become available to help with the distribution of tools like this into more places where they can help kids.

If you focus your comments on tutor/mentor programs, I can give this some attention on my own blog and web site.

Thanks for the comment. Having previously taught for RCEC, I interacted with some of your kids. You guys do a great job!