Financing Child Care in the United States - Ewing Marion Kauffman ...

POPULATION SERVED
In FY1998, at 40 Beacons, more than 77,000 children
and youth, through age 21, and 36,000 adults were
involved. Nearly two–thirds of the participants were
children ages 5 to 18, and 50 percent of Beacon
participants had at least one family member who also
took advantage of the Beacons. Male participation
peaked in the 19– to 21–year–old age group and female
participation peaked in the 5– to 11–year–old age group
and again among the adult female population. Overall,
equal numbers of males and females participated.
STRATEGIC CONSIDERATIONS
• As the Beacons have grown from a pilot project to a
city–wide initiative, the challenges have changed.
Current issues include maintaining an identity as an
initiative with a common vision; ensuring that
school–community organization relationships can
succeed despite different institutional cultures;
retaining the identity of the Beacon in each school;
recruiting, training and retaining quality staff, and
maintaining quality and consistency. Not all of the
community organizations responsible for the Beacons
have “grown up” with the model, necessitating an
ongoing commitment to technical assistance to assure
development of a common vision and implementation
process.
• Beacons operate within the youth development
framework, which emphasizes caring relationships,
opportunities for young people to contribute, engaging
activities, high expectations and continuity. The youth
development framework provides a different paradigm
for these programs than does the traditional child care
framework. They are provided with ongoing assistance
from the Youth Development Institute to ensure that
they understand and can implement the youth
development framework.
• One example of the use of the youth development
framework may be found in the commitment to youth
and community involvement. Youth are invited to sit on
advisory committees and to assist with program design.
Beacons also involve significant volunteer leadership
from adults in their communities through advisory
boards and other forums.
• Developing good working relationships with school
principals and superintendents is an important part of
the co–location strategy that is central to the Beacons.
Maintaining these relationships is an ongoing
challenge. However, in contrast to many of the
after–school/extended hours programs developed in
schools, the Beacons did not require an initial, strong
commitment from principals.
• The Beacons illustrate how leaders from the nonprofit
and governmental sectors can combine their ideas and
skills to bring a fresh approach to problem–solving.
Mayor David Dinkins (D) appointed a well–known civic
leader to chair a committee on substance abuse, which
included recommendations to create safe havens for
New York City youth. Following the release of the
report, a youth development expert was named to head
the city agency (which eventually became the
Department of Youth and Community Development)
that was charged with implementation of many of the
youth recommendations of the committee. A number of
prominent youth development experts associated with
the Youth Development Institute (YDI) of the Fund for
the City of New York came together to propose the
Beacons as a living model of the youth development
framework. A partnership was developed between the
city and the Youth Development Institute, in which YDI
would develop capacity and provide technical
assistance to enhance the city’s financial investment.
• The role of the initial community organizations was
crucial to the early success of the Beacons. The
agencies selected demonstrated a strong
understanding of youth development principles, a track
record of positive service provision and strong roots in
the community.
• Positive response to the Beacons at the community
level has been high from the beginning. As a result,
strong interest also developed quickly from the city’s
elected officials, resulting in rapid growth prior to
evaluation of the model. The original program
designers deferred formal evaluation until the Beacons
were able to work out the complexity of the model,
particularly since it involved multiple partners and
organizations working together to implement a youth
development framework. A three–year, privately
financed formal evaluation is underway, conducted by
the Academy for Educational Development and
managed by the Youth Development Institute. The
initial year of the evaluation focused on implementation
and development issues; the final two years are
examining outcomes and impact, linking the extent to
which the Beacons are practicing youth development
with youth outcomes.
OTHER SITES WITH SIMILAR STRATEGIES
The Beacons are being adapted in San Francisco,
Savannah, Minneapolis, Oakland and Denver. A federal
grant programs, 21st Century Learning Centers, makes
competitive funding available to school districts which
may elect to work with community partners to set up
after–school learning opportunities in schools.
104