Blackburn Mentoring offers one-on-one mentoring and coaching for teens 13 and up, college students and young adults, by video anywhere in Illinois and in person in Los Angeles, and has been mentoring since 2014. Begin with a free 20 minute intro call, then expect a mentor match within 2 business days.

Best for:

A high school student who knows what to do but struggles to follow through on schoolwork and deadlines
A college student who is falling behind, far from home or lost on a large campus
A young adult who feels stuck after school, between jobs or living at home
Families who want weekly structure and parent updates without a weekly drive

Families, students and young adults anywhere in Illinois can work with a dedicated Blackburn mentor by video. The whole state is on Central time, two hours ahead of our team in Los Angeles, so after-school, evening and weekend sessions are easy to set. Chicago, the suburbs, a college town or a farm community downstate: the process is the same.

Chicago and everything else

Illinois is often described as two places: the Chicago metro in the northeast corner, where most people live, and downstate, a long stretch of farmland, river towns and small cities reaching more than 300 miles south toward Kentucky. A family in Carbondale and a family in Evanston live very different lives, but both may struggle to find a consistent mentor nearby who fits. Online sessions remove the commute and the waiting list.

Regions across the state

Chicago and the collar counties: the city, the North Shore, DuPage, Lake, Will, Kane and McHenry counties.
Northern Illinois: Rockford and the towns along the Wisconsin line.
Central Illinois: Springfield, Peoria, Bloomington-Normal and Champaign-Urbana.
The western edge: the Quad Cities on the Mississippi.
Southern Illinois: the Metro East near St. Louis and the hills and small towns further south.

An economy with many doors

Chicago is a national center for finance, trading, insurance, consulting, law and corporate headquarters, and it sits at the heart of the country’s rail, trucking and air freight network. Manufacturing remains strong across the state. Downstate, agriculture is huge, with corn and soybeans covering much of the land, alongside food processing, agricultural equipment, insurance, state government and health care.

For young adults, that variety is an advantage and a source of pressure. There are many paths and no one telling you which to take. A mentor helps narrow them to the next practical step.

The education picture

Illinois has hundreds of public school districts, from very large urban systems to small rural districts downstate, plus many suburban districts with strong reputations. Catholic and other independent schools have a long history, especially in the Chicago area.

After high school, students can choose from a large public university system, regional public universities and an extensive community college network that reaches nearly every part of the state. Illinois also has a reputation for sending many high school graduates to colleges in other states, especially across the Midwest, while drawing students from elsewhere to its own campuses and to Chicago.

What this means for different ages

High schoolers in demanding suburban schools often need a weekly plan more than more pressure; those in smaller districts may want help seeing options beyond their town. See mentoring for high school students.
College students who left the state can lose their footing far from home, and those at community college often juggle work and classes. See mentoring for college students and community college mentoring.
Young adults moving to Chicago for a first job, or back home after school, benefit from structure and accountability. See young adult mentoring.
Professionals facing a promotion, a layoff or a career change can work through it with a mentor on their own schedule.

Pages for areas in Illinois

Online mentoring in Chicago
Online mentoring on the Chicago North Shore
Online mentoring in Naperville and DuPage County
Online mentoring in St. Louis, which includes the Illinois side of the metro

Elsewhere in the state, see how online mentoring works or browse mentoring by state. For families, mentoring for families explains how parents stay involved.

Coming up through school and work in Illinois

Illinois winters set the tone for much of the year: dark afternoons, biting wind off Lake Michigan, icy rural roads downstate and plenty of indoor time from November to March. Summers make up for it with outdoor jobs, park district programs, lakefront crowds and county fairs. Downstate, the corn and soybean harvest fills the fall, and many farm families’ teenagers put in long hours in the fields or at grain elevators.

Around Chicago, young people learn to get around by train and bus as much as by car: students ride the CTA or Metra from Oak Park, Evanston, Schaumburg or Aurora, and many college students live at home to save money while going to school in the city. Early careers often start in finance and trading, consulting, health care, logistics and freight, government and manufacturing, and the Chicago area has a strong tradition of union apprenticeships in the building trades. In the Metro East, around Edwardsville and Belleville, young adults often work or study across the river in Missouri, while central Illinois towns like Bloomington-Normal and Peoria offer a lower cost of living and fewer options.

Situations Illinois families and young adults often navigate

A Chicago student commuting to college by train while working part time and rarely staying on campus.
A suburban teen at a very large high school who feels invisible in the crowd.
A young adult applying to a building trades apprenticeship and preparing for each step of the selection process.
A downstate senior choosing between a community college close to home and a university several hours away.
A Metro East graduate deciding which side of the river to live and work on, and what that means for tuition.

Illinois is on Central time from the Wisconsin line to Cairo, and video sessions are booked on your clock; in-person sessions happen only in Los Angeles. The state’s long-running Monetary Award Program (MAP) grant helps many students with financial need, but rules and funding change, so check the official state student aid site and see financial aid basics. Also worth reading: commuter college students and in-state tuition and residency. Area pages: Chicago, Naperville and DuPage and the North Shore.

Common questions

What time zone are Illinois sessions in?

Central time, statewide. A 4 pm session in Illinois is 2 pm for our team in Los Angeles, and we always schedule in your local time.

We live downstate, far from Chicago. Can we still work with you?

Yes. Clients work with their mentor entirely by video, so Springfield, Peoria or a small town in southern Illinois works exactly like the city.

Can a mentor work with my child at college in another state?

Yes. Sessions follow the student, with progress updates to parents in Illinois when the student agrees.

Is this the same as tutoring?

No. Mentors focus on goals, habits, planning and follow-through. They can coordinate with a tutor or counselor a family already has.

Get started

Would it help to talk through what your Illinois student or young adult needs? Call (888) 305 5422, email contact@blackburnmentoring.com or start with a short assessment. A member of our team reviews every assessment personally and sets up a free intro call.

Last updated November 2, 2026.

Book a free intro call Text us

Free, by video, 20 minutes, with a member of our team. Weekdays 9 to 5 Pacific.

Online Mentoring and Coaching in Illinois