This article presents strategies youth development programs can use to fortify relationships and foster identity development as a way to help bolster the academic performance of girls of color.
Students will apply themselves to learning if the context interests them. Focusing on a subject close to middle school students' hearts, such as fashion, rather than on specific academic tasks such as writing or researching, builds intrinsic motivation for learning. This article explores the Fabulous Fashions program, which engages students in mathematics and literacy through the context of their interest in fashion.
This article describes Youth as Resources, a nationwide initiative involves youth and adults as equal partners in projects that improve community life. Some examples of the projects include the Rural Renewable Energy Alliance, which engages teenagers to install solar heating in low income homes, and the Haydenville Preservation Committee, which implemented neighborhood cleanup and landscaping projects in rural Ohio.
This article describes the Multimedia Arts Education Program (MAEP), an ongoing, intensive after school computer-mediated art technology program begun in 1996 by the Tucson Pima Arts Council (TPAC) in Tucson, Arizona. This five-semester program targets at-risk middle school youth from disadvantaged families. Students worked with professional artist/teachers, learning to do computer graphics and publishing, language arts and word processing, computer animation and video production.
Children thrive individually when they feel part of a group. Thus every youth organization must intentionally create an agency culture that promotes positive values and relationships. Using social group work theory and her own experience as an agency director, the author proposes a Model for Common Humanity: nine principles that can guide the fostering of an agency milieu.
OST programs can be part of the solution to the growing epidemic of child obesity. A first step is to understand current practices and learn about supports for—and barriers to—providing nutritious foods in afterschool programs.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Jessica WiechaGeorgia HallEllen GannettBarbara Roth
Positive behavior support, with its emphasis on teaching desired actions rather than punishing undesirable actions, can be a powerful tool for managing young people’s behavior. This article examines its' application in afterschool settings.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Brian McKevittJessica DempseyJackie TernusMark Shriver
Emphasizing the intersection of policy and politics, this paper uses Theda Skocpol’s polity-centered approach (1992) to analyze two key moments in the history of the 21st Century Community Learning Centers (21st CCLC) program: 1998, when the program’s budget grew from $40 million to $200 million, and 2003, when President Bush attempted to cut the program’s budget from $1 billion to $400 million. A thorough understanding of this history can help afterschool advocates successfully respond to President Obama’s recent proposal to dramatically change the 21st CCLC program once again.
The example of two pilot credentials in Massachusetts, The School-Age Youth Development Credential (SAYD) and the Professional Youth Worker Credential (PYWC), can help us to understand the importance of establishing credentials and what we can expect to accomplish in doing so. This knowledge can guide the next steps in establishing a national credential for afterschool and youth workers.
This article examines youth experience and engagement in a community service afterschool program viewed as a relational experience, with experiences and engagement being a product of activity, advisors and influence of peers.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Jeffrey JonesJoshua BenchBethany WarnaarJohn Stroup