Concerns about the quality of participant’s experiences in after-school programs have been raised in studies of a number of large after-school initiatives (cite national evaluation of the 21st CCLC, MARS, and evaluation of the San Francisco Beacons). As a result, after-school practitioners, policy makers, and researchers are increasingly focused on articulating the specific elements of high-quality after-school programs. This panel addressed the questions: How do we define program quality? What specific practices promote quality and how can these practices be intentionally applied to improve after-school programs?
Charles Smith presented findings from research on instructional practices in after-school settings and whether or not certain staff practices tend to occur together across after-school settings. Additional analyses investigated whether certain instructional practices tend to cluster together as identifiable practices within particular programs, and finally, whether or not specific practices are used more frequently with certain age groups or content areas. Smith found seven identifiable practices which fall under the areas of positive climate, instructional support and opportunities for engagement. Sites that score high in all three of these areas were defined as high quality sites. Overall, Smith concluded that it is possible to identify theoretically coherent practice sets that occur across after-school offerings. Furthermore, Smith found that individual after-school staff tend to use one of three identifiable instructional approaches. One-quarter of staff did not use an identifiable approach and provide little access to key experiences. Planning, reflection, and small group experiences are infrequently available in after-school settings. Smith also found that high quality programming is possible across age levels and content area, but is more prevalent in high school and arts/enrichment offerings. Smith also found that adult control was more prevalent in elementary and sports offerings.
Charles Smith, After-School Pedagogies: Inside the Black Box of After-School Instruction
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Nancy Deutsch presented findings from two qualitative studies that explore the role of adult-youth relationships in creating quality after-school programs for high-school aged youth. Through observation and interviews, Deutsch documents how adult-youth relationships are an important component in creating quality after-school settings. Deutsch discussed the salient components of these relationships including the importance of adult role models, the differences between relational experiences in after-school versus the day school, the role of bi-directional respect, and proactive relational strategies employed by staff, and the feeling of the youth organization providing a “like home” atmosphere.
Nancy Deutsch, Adult-Youth Relationships as a Key Component of Quality After-School Programs: Capturing the Magic
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Beth Miller presented findings from The Massachusetts Afterschool Research Study (MARS) which examined relationships between program characteristics, program quality, and youth outcomes. Miller found six program quality factors that influence youth outcomes, including: appropriate space, staff engagement, youth engagement, high quality and challenging activities, quality homework assistance time, family communication at pickup time. However, only youth engagement led directly to youth outcomes. Miller also found that effective programs tend to employ staff with higher education, offer higher compensation, and maintained lower staff turnover. Additionally, effective programs have stronger connections to schools and families. Miller found several other organizational characteristics that were associated with effective programs, including smaller group sizes, smaller youth-staff ratios, a well-paced schedule and well-organized routines.
Beth Miller, Making it Count: Reaching Positive Youth Outcomes A report of The Massachusetts Afterschool Research Study
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Hal Smith discussed his experiences implementing and evaluating quality in New York City’s Out-of-School Time Programs for Youth (OST) initiative. This initiative consists of over 500 after-school programs. Smith spoke of three distinct levels of quality: participant, program, and system level. Smith discussed indicators used to assess quality at the program-level quality in the OST initiative, such as, the ability for programs to fill and maintain target enrollment numbers. Finally, Smith spoke of the challenges his agency has encountered with respect to capacity building
NYC's Out-of-School Time (OST) Programs for Youth
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Michelle Gambone presented findings from research on the developmental strengths and weaknesses of youth programs and discussed improvement strategies for strengthening programs. Gambone’s research aims to identify what combination of strategies is effective for promoting positive development in out-of-school time programs. Gambone found several strategies that increased supportive relationships, physical and emotional safety, youth involvement, and skill building. Successful strategies for improving relationships included, but were not limited to, training with a ‘youth centered’ approach, adjusting hiring procedures to focus on obtaining staff who have strong relationship building skills, and to allow more flexible scheduling to facilitate informal interaction between youth and staff. Gambone found successful strategies for improving skill building included, but were not limited to, staff evaluations that focus on providing supports and opportunities, and defining core skills for each age group. Finally, Gambone found that some of the successful strategies for improving youth involvement were, training staff to involve youth in decision making, and creating opportunities for older youth to mentor younger youth.
Michelle Gambone, Improving Youth Development Programs
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