out-of-school time

[You need to] take time to really understand the field on the ground in your
community. Talk to youth workers, talk to site supervisors, talk to youth if you can,
get a strong understanding of what’s there. When we started, we realized we didn’t
even have the landscape of what’s available. Now we have made a landscape map.
University of Kansas did research with us, and found 780 programs. Now we have that
map. You can see where there are gaps, where there was a whole lot of one thing. For
example, in our urban core there is lots of focus on academics. For the early childhood
field, this information already existed. But there was nothing like it for out-of-school time.
One key aspect of understanding the community context was hearing the voices of youth themselves. The
Community Pilot Initiative grant asked United Ways to listen to the community and to include young people. In
Boston, for example, the United Way developed and fielded a youth survey on existing youth assets.
Other United Ways used focus groups and community conversations that were composed primarily of
youth, in addition to inviting youth to take part in broader community conversations. Austin, Texas, for
instance, held nine focus groups, with separate groups for male and female students as well as parents.
The staff developed a report out of those focus groups that highlighted these voices and what was
learned from these groups, including differences between them:
Consistently, we learned that both students and parents want more from out-of-school
programming: better communication with families, more cumulative projects tied to
technology, more sports in afterschool, more cooking classes and hands-on activities.
We also learned how important out-of-school programming is for both students and
families. Students reported that out-of-school programming was often a refuge from
the pressures of both school and home – a place they could be themselves with their
friends. Parents reported that they often depended on out-of-school programs so that
their children were not home alone before they get off work. Parents also stated that
out-of-school programs were important in making sure their children stayed active
and learned new skills.
Armed with a map, with a clear understanding of the voices in the community, and with emerging
information about program quality and outcomes, United Ways involved in these community out-ofschool
time initiatives found that it became possible to make new decisions with more assurance. It was
important to gather ongoing data about program impacts – which came as a result of ongoing program
quality self-assessments. These three components provided an important field of vision.
The Louisville United Way described the kind of impact the data and the map could have:
The Salvation Army decided it could not support two local Boys & Girls clubs
financially anymore. The Boys & Girls Clubs of Kentuckiana looked at picking them
up, but we first looked at data. The data showed that it was absolutely important to
keep one site open. But the other was placed poorly. We had to shift the other site by
a couple of blocks. I was there for the reopening of that one, and it was incredible. The
number of kids that they reconnected with was incredible.
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