Statewide Afterschool Networks:
Creating Public-Private Partnerships for High Quality, Sustainable Afterschool Programs

A Forum — October 1, 2004

Background

This forum, sponsored by the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, is the second in a five-part series on issues in out-of-school-time programming. According to forum moderator Audrey Hutchinson, Program Director for Education and Afterschool, Institute for Youth, Education and Family, National League of Cities, supportive statewide networks are a key to developing systems for quality afterschool programs that lead to academic achievement. These networks, already in place in 18 states, provide a structure for bringing together key decision makers interested in improving outcomes for children and youth through school-based/school-linked afterschool programs. They can help to develop sustainable, high quality, well funded afterschool programs that support the needs of students from diverse backgrounds.

Forum Summary

Janelle Cousino, Vice President, FowlerHoffman, LLC, consultant to the Afterschool Alliance, provided an overview of the Afterschool Technical Assistance Collaborative (ATAC). ATAC is comprised of representatives of: Afterschool Alliance; Afterschool and Community Learning Network, University of South Carolina; Council of Chief State School Officers, The Finance Project, National Conference of State Legislatures, National Governors Association and National League of Cities. ATAC’s role is to support resource development in the states; create opportunities to attract stakeholders to support afterschool expansion; and provide consultation for building systems, public will, policy development, and quality improvement strategies.

According to Cousino, it is important for organizations to work at the state level when developing networks in order to best integrate sources of funding to support afterschool programming. State level activities are especially crucial now that both the funding and administration for 21st Century Community Learning Centers (CCLC) occur at this level. In addition, federal and local funding can be used together with these and other state funds in order to support long-term programs for children of every age. Networks of state and local government agencies, in partnership with private businesses and others interested in the well-being of children and youth (e.g., law enforcement and school districts), can develop an infrastructure of resources for afterschool programs. The task of these networks should be to build durable coalitions that can manage and accept change as well as attract more stakeholders who are willing to “become a part of the solution” in supporting afterschool programs. In particular, the networks sponsored by the Mott Foundation, with help from ATAC, support systems that emphasize connections to schools to supplement the learning that occurs during the school day.

Cousino stressed sustainability and quality as the two major goals of these networks. In order to ensure sustainable programs, networks must work to broaden their base of long-lasting financial and political support. In order to develop high quality afterschool programs, the networks must strive to bring together many voices in order to develop a common definition of quality that the network can support.

Jennifer Becker Mouhcine, Illinois Afterschool Partnership Director, Illinois Center for Violence Prevention, discussed the development of the state afterschool network in Illinois and described how it functions to ensure program sustainability and create supportive policies. The Illinois Afterschool Partnership is co-chaired by the Illinois Department of Education and the Illinois Department of Human Services, and is coordinated by the Illinois Center for Violence Prevention. It was created through legislative resolutions in order to bring together key afterschool stakeholders (e.g. child care, youth development, and education) throughout the state in an effort to provide quality afterschool programs for all children. The Partnership began as a task force to learn more about how afterschool programs operated in Illinois and to identify what policy issues needed to be addressed to encourage the development of quality programs. The findings and recommendations of this task force provided an important framework for identifying priorities, core elements, and guiding principles to enable groups to come together. The Task Force Report outlines policy recommendations in the areas of funding, interagency collaboration, community collaboration, evaluation, and capacity building. Among recommendations provided are streamlining the RFP process between state agencies that fund afterschool programs, and developing a statewide training system and common outcome measures.

The Illinois After-school Alliance is a sister component to the Partnership and a statewide coalition which encourages dialogue about afterschool programs at the state and community levels. The Alliance identifies “legislative champions” who can build support for programs in legislation, and helps programs and consumers across the state become advocates of afterschool in their communities. The Alliance monitors policies affecting afterschool, works with groups around the state to learn about the impact of those policies, and develops recommendations for improvement from the grassroots.

Currently, the Partnership is expanding to include partners from the private sector. As employers look to develop the future workforce and provide for the children of their current employees, businesses represent crucial stakeholders and are important to the public/private partnerships necessary to support afterschool programming. With support from these partners, the Partnership looks at policy from the perspectives of policymakers and practitioners to determine how to make it easy for communities to secure the resources needed to develop quality afterschool programs. For example, a finance plan being developed by the Partnership will outline public and private resources for afterschool (from federal and state levels, as well as supplemental sources from a variety of public funding streams), and the true amount of resources communities need in order to develop high quality programs.

Nancy Kellogg Harper, Director, represented the Kansas Enrichment Network, a part of the Institute for Educational Research and Public Service at the University of Kansas. Harper offered reasons for developing afterschool programs that go beyond academic and youth development supports. She described afterschool programs in Kansas as an “economic strategy” to help revitalize or strengthen rural towns. Communities with few local activities for youth, she said, are less likely to attract new residents or to hold those who would otherwise leave. Afterschool programs can provide the activities, and, to succeed, must involve many community members on boards and as volunteers. The local business leaders (such as bankers, realtors, health professionals) seem to know the value of a high-quality, community-supported afterschool program for their collective economic health.

The Kansas Enrichment Network (a collaborative of 60 organizational partners) acts as “convener and catalyst” to help communities develop quality programs. The Network’s work is based on four goals: (1) build a network of committed partners, including all agencies and organizations that provide programs, services, or resources for afterschool; (2) offer and provide technical assistance to all afterschool programs in the form of workshops, peer-to-peer collaborations, evaluation, site direction and advocacy training; (3) maintain a public-engagement campaign; and (4) conduct and disseminate research on the effectiveness of afterschool programs. According to Harper, the Kansas Enrichment Network has concentrated on several quality-related activities, including establishing standards-based credentials for youth-development workers of school-age children, and conducting internal evaluations of the technical-assistance programs and of the network’s effectiveness. Kansas’ accountability procedures for its 21st CCLC programs include: applicant workshops with grant writing support; a multi-level review process including external reviewers, twice-annual site visits, a compliance visit once a year, and workshops for external evaluators; and a unique continuous-improvement rubric required of each grantee.

Discussion

In the discussion that followed, panelists were asked to:

Define “quality” in afterschool programs, discuss how policymakers define it, and clarify the difference or connection between the two definitions.

Answer: Panelists agreed that definitions should not be left up to the politicians. Panelists believed that the definition of quality depends on the types of outcomes we want to see for the children participating in afterschool programs: Are the students interested and engaged? Do they feel “better,” or more confident? Are they doing their homework? In short, do the programs make a difference in their lives? Cousino and Mouhcine also offered some program-level measures of quality, including staff/child ratios, strength of partnerships with the community and academic content.

Distinguish between measurements of youth development and academic outcomes, and address whether there is a uniform system of data collection for measuring such outcomes.

Answer: Data collection methods can vary from state to state. The Kansas Enrichment Network is working with the University of Kansas to determine whether measurements of various outcomes already exist. Illinois is starting its own data collection and analysis. Other states, like New Hampshire, already have an infrastructure in place for collecting uniform data on afterschool programs.

Describe the relationship between practitioners in early childhood education and those working with school-aged children in supporting afterschool programs across ages. How can school-aged programs develop the standards and certification and licensing procedures for workers that early childhood education programs have?

Answer: Cousino admitted that bridging early childhood education and school-aged afterschool can be a challenge, but states are developing partnerships and licensing procedures for practitioners across the two fields. In Kansas, early childhood education practitioners are working with the state to develop consistent credentialing and licensing for workers in school-aged afterschool programs. Both Harper and Mouhcine stressed the importance of statewide networks in facilitating discussion between these two groups in a “non-threatening manner.”

Describe what we know about afterschool program staff, their professional development needs, and whether incentives exist for staff participation in professional development activities.

Answer: According to Mouhcine, a group in the Illinois Afterschool Alliance is focusing on workforce “capacity building” and collecting information on afterschool staff schedules, training and demographics. Professional development can then be tailored to the staff based on these findings. In Kansas, articulating plans for professional development is one of the “most important parts” of the program application for state funding. The network conducts several site visits in order to follow up with these programs and to make sure that they are complying with professional development standards. Additionally, a certain number of staff members are required to attend regional, state, and national professional development conferences.

Identify difficulties programs have in obtaining Supplemental Educational Services (SES) grants. How do states help programs to build expertise in grant-writing to attain these funds, particularly if they have been unsuccessful in securing them in the past?

Answers: Although a “provider’s tool kit” is soon to be available (www.tutorsforkids.org) to programs looking to secure SES funds, there are still many barriers. In particular, it is difficult to encourage afterschool program providers to apply for state approval as SES providers with no guarantee of having students to serve ultimately. Parents make the selection of provider and it is not clear how many students will be eligible. While it makes great sense to have Supplemental Educational Services embedded in afterschool programs in order to have wrap-around coverage in the afterschool hours, many providers are not necessarily equipped to offer these tutoring services in accordance with the state requirements.

Community afterschool capacity building, especially in communities of need, is a challenge. It is sometimes difficult for a school district to write the grants and develop the range of community partners necessary for a quality program. Parents know the advantages of programs, but cannot create community capacity on their own. In Kansas, the problem is that too few school districts apply for SES funds. In order to encourage programs to seek funding from many sources, the Kansas Enrichment Network provides grant-writing workshops and seminars.