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The [Jniversity of Pittsburgh Office of Child Development, funded by The
Forbes Fund with a grant from The Howard Heinz Endowment, conducted a
needs assessment and environmental scan of programs that provide nonschoolhour
care for elementary school-age children residing in Allegheny County. A
2l-person Community Advisory Committee (Appendix I) guided the project,
reviewed findings, and generated policy recommendations. A full report is
available from The Forbes Fund.
Definition of nonschool-hour programs. For the purpose of this project,
nonschool-hour programs were those that served children enrolled in kindergarten
through sixth grade (approximately 5 ttrough 12 years of age) during nonschool
hours, including before and after school, weekends,
in-service days, school holidays and vacations, and
the summer recess plus programs providing care for
sick children. The main purpose of such programs is
to provide care and enrichment for school-age children
when they are not in school primarily because their
parents are unavailable to care for them. Usually these
programs are available to children at least two hours a
day, four days a week. Therefore, they do not include
music lessons, scouting, etc.
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Project components. The Project had several major
components:
. National literature review. The national literature,
including a national survey of nonschool-hour
programs conducted in 1991, as well as national and
local policies and funding options were reviewed.
. Providersurvey and inventory. A survey of 139
programs that provided nonschool-hour services
plus information from the YWCA Child Care
Partnerships database of 231 regulated or licensed
child care centers that serve school-age children
provided a snapshot and inventory of nonschoolhour
programming in Allegheny County.
, Geographic mapping of children and services.
The number of children approximately 5-12 years
of age, especially low-income children, was
Researcl¿ shows that scltool-age chìldren in unstruclured
progranrs get less academic assìslance, watch ntore lelevision,
do poorer acadenically, and lnvc more problents ìn scltool than
children who receíve sln¿chtred center carc.