The final plenary session of the conference included four presentations on issues of staffing and professional development in after-school programs. Framing questions for the panel included what professional development opportunities exist for after-school staff? How are these practices related to program quality?
Reed Larson presented findings from an in-depth qualitative study of youth workers. Larson's research aims to understand the types of dilemmas after-school practitioners encounter in their daily work with youth. Larson collected data from participant observation in 12 exemplary youth programs to gain a better understanding of how developmental processes occur and what adult leaders do on the ground to support them. Larson surveyed the range of dilemmas of practice encountered by program staff and then categorized those dilemmas into five types: supporting youth's work in program activities, cultivating norms and enforcing rules, youth's personalities and relationships, reconciling the organizational system with youth development, and interfacing with external worlds. Larson found that staff responses to these dilemmas were youth-centered, and balanced multiple considerations (such as balancing challenge and support, and often were multi-pronged responses to dilemmas).
Reed Larson, Dilemmas of Youth Practice
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Eric Schaps shared lessons learned from staff at the Developmental Studies Center on what makes for effective professional development experiences. The Developmental Studies Center has developed various curricula used by after-school programs and provides professional development to program staff. Schaps argues that professional development for after-school workers should focus on academic enrichment that complements what happens in school and speaks to community building and participants' social development. Effective professional development experiences are interactive, address basic group management, are sequential and sustained, are accompanied by specific, aligned implementation materials, involve all levels of staff (including directors, supervisors and frontline staff), and include sufficient time for planning.
Developmental Studies Center
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Priscilla Little discussed the Harvard Family Research Project's 2004 review of available research on the effectiveness of professional development within the after-school field. Although many researchers agree that staffing is related to quality in out-of-school time (OST) programs, little is known about how best to evaluate the effectiveness of specific professional development strategies. A framework was presented for conducting evaluations of OST professional development initiatives which includes four levels:
Little used this as an opportunity to facilitate discussion among attendees about how best to implement effective evaluations of professional development initiatives incorporating this framework.
Priscilla Little, Promoting Quality through Professional Development: A Framework for Evaluation
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Zena Rudo discussed the National Partnership for Quality Afterschool Learning, which conducts research on promising practices in six content areas. Rudo emphasized the importance of a dialogue between researcher and practitioners. She argues that the involvement of practitioners in a discussion of professional development is critical to its success. Rudo relayed feedback from her after-school partners, that practitioners often express the desire to better understand how and what kinds of data to collect from their programs that would best support the development of professional development tools.
The National Partnership for Quality Afterschool Learning
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