quality/best practices resources
The Connecticut After School Network recently published Connecticut-specific Best Practice Guidelines and a companion Self-Assessment Tool.
To download the Guidelines, click here.
To download the Self-Assessment Tool, click here.
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The After School Corporation (TASC) recently released "After School Programs & High School Success" an analysis of post-program educational patterns of former middle-grades TASC participants and "Meeting the High School Challenge" a report describing promising programmatic models that examines the situations in which they work best, and warns of possible pitfalls.
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The Nellie Mae Education Foundation released a new report by Dr. Beth Miller entitled, "The Learning Season: The Untapped Power of Summer to Advance Student Achievement." You can download the report here.
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Tools for Mentoring Adolescents were developed by the Mentoring Partnership of Minnesota in collaboration with the Search Institute to support and strengthen relationships between mentors and mentees.
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Multicultural Youth Leadership Curriculum - a project of SOAR, "helping kids reach the sky," is a curriculum module for youth professionals to address culture, leadership, identity and empowerment with diverse youth ages 14 - 18.
If you would like a free copy mailed to you, contact SOAR via Deb Gardner at dgardner@uwkc.org.
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Toolkit for After-School Programs from CIS
The nation's fifth largest youth-serving organization, Communities In Schools (www.cisnet.org) champions the connection of needed community resources with schools to help kids succeed in school and prepare for life. The contents of the Toolkit were developed by the National Dropout Prevention Center (NDPC) in collaboration with Communities In Schools.
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New Tool for Advocates from Forum for Youth Investments:
These action briefs are part of a series developed by the Forum for Youth Investment, Connect for Kids, Voices for America’s Children and many state Kids Count organizations, to share the vision, messages and state policies being proposed to improve the work readiness of youth.
Click here to download Ready for 21 Action Brief 1.
Click here to download Ready for 21 Action Brief 2.
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Helping Youth Succeed Through Out-of-School Time
AED Center for Youth Development and Policy Research and American Youth Policy Forum (AYPF) recently released, "Helping Youth Succeed Through Out-of-School Time."
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Strong, Valued, Youth Work Profession: The goal of the Coalition is to help achieve the vision of a strong, valued youth work profession through documentation, education and communications activities and by serving as a locus for joint action and collaboration within the field. If you would like to be part of the Coalition contact
Pam Garza at pam@nassembly.org.
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From the National Collaboration for Youth:
Capturing Promising Practices in the Recruitment and Retention of Frontline Youth Workers: Turnover is a critical issue to building a stable, prepared, supported workforce that is committed to the development of young people. In order to provide strategies for organizations, the National Collaboration for Youth has spent the last year surveying, interviewing, dialoguing and capturing promising strategies used at the local level to better recruit and retain frontline youth development workers.
To view and download the full publication click here.
To view the 4-page summary on recruitment click here.
To view the 4-page summary on retention click here.
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OUT-OF-SCHOOL TIME DATABASE The Out-of-School Time (OST) Program Evaluation Database is a comprehensive collection of profiles written by HFRP staff of OST program evaluations. Visit the database at:
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The U.S. Department of Education is pleased to announce the newly remodeled and updated Federal Resources for Education Excellence (FREE) Web site. There are over 1500 resources to take advantage of at FREE, ranging from primary historical documents, lesson plans, science visualizations, math simulations and online challenges, paintings, photos, mapping tools, and more. This easily accessible information is provided by federal organizations and agencies such as the Library of Congress, National Archives, NEH, National Gallery of Art, National Park Service, Smithsonian, NSF, and NASA.