This is an archive of past research, articles and issues that pertain to after school. For your convenience, the material is categorized into the following headings:
- Research
- A New Day For Learning
- 21st Century Community Learning Centers
- Summer
- Learning
- Staff Recruitment and Retention
- Nutrition
- Youth: Middle / High School
- Parents
The Big Lie: Reframing Expectations of Afterschool Programs by Dr. Robert Halpern of the Erikson Institute
Critical Hours Executive Summary by Beth Miller
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A NEW DAY FOR LEARNING : The Time, Learning, and Afterschool Task Force Report available here.
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21st Century Community Learning Centers:
PROFILES OF SUCCESSFUL POST-21st CCLC SUSTAINABILITY
The Finance Project's Out of School Time Project has released, Sustaining 21st Century Community Learning Centers: What Works for Programs and How Policymakers Can Help. The report offers up a series of policy options for easing 21st Century grantees' transition away from federal support. The report is available here.
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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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Quality Time After School: What Instructors Can Do to Enhance Learning: Drawing from surveys and interviews with more than 400 participants and instructors from five Philadelphia-based Beacon Centers. To read the full report click here.
To read the executive summary click here.
Launching Literacy in After-School Programs: Early Lessons from the CORAL Initiative: CORAL (Communities Organizing Resources to Advance Learning) is a five-city, $60-million effort to improve educational achievement through after school programming.
WONDERING WITH CHILDREN: THE IMPORTANCE OF OBSERVATION http://ecrp.uiuc.edu/v7n2/forman.html
This article, while geared to the preschool child, offers excellent thoughts, ideas and tips on observation of children. Many programs that serve young children in Kindergarten and 1st grade will find useful information here.
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Staff Recruitment and Retention:
Afterschool: A Powerful Path to Teacher Recruitment and Retention
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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Read the policy brief, "Fighting Obesity in the Public Schools," authored by Ron Haskins.
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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.
Is There Common Ground? - An Exploratory Study of the Interests and Needs of Community-Based and Faith-Based Youth Workers: The study examines the core competencies of youth workers in both sectors as well as their interests in and concerns about working together. View the full report by clicking here.
Assessing the Mental Health of Adolescents: A Guide for Out-of-School Time Program Practitioners
The Next Generation Youth Work Coalition - Bulletin 2
This second Bulletin in the series includes articles on professional development/workforce promising practices, highlights of relevant projects, events in the field and more. Karen Pittman and Nicole Yohalem have both contributed features to the bulletin as part of our ongoing work with the Coalition, which has its administrative home at the Forum. If you would like to be part of the Coalition, contact Pam Garza at pam@nassembly.org.
What the National Crime Prevention Council is Doing to Protect Children and Youth - Children and young people are at the heart of crime prevention. Not only are they a central rallying point for communities, but effective education and strong families in a healthy community context can reduce delinquency and adult crime.
Fight Crime Invest-in-Kids Issue paper
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After School Hours A Worry For Working Parents: As many as 2.5 million parents are overly stressed by Parental Concern about After-School Time (PCAST), and are likely to bring their concerns to the office, according to a study by the Women's Studies Research Center at Brandeis University and Catalyst. The study was based on a survey of 1,755 employed parents who work at one of three Fortune 100 companies across the country. Citigroup, Fannie Mae and Pfizer corporations sponsored the research. To view the full report click here. For a fact sheet, click here.