News
Moving Towards Quality
This inspiring 14-minute video was made by Community Bridge Video for the California Afterschool Network about the Youth Program Quality Assessment tool and other point-of-service evaluations.
Youth Work Methods Enhancement
The Youth Work Methods bring together over fifty years of experience and the latest research. This year the Weikart Center will update and substantially enhance the Youth Work Methods Series. Each method will be augmented with:
- a thorough review of current related research
- an enhanced guidebook containing additional content, materials, activities, examples, and a summary of the supporting research
- an interactive online course to support learning before, after, or in place of a live training experience. Online courses will become available on a rolling basis beginning in March 2011. These online courses provide a great way to bring your staff up to speed or to deepen your understanding!
In the coming months, we will provide support for TOT graduates around the enhanced materials. Look for rollout of the first set of guides in fall 2011!
To learn more, watch this interactive video!
Our deep thanks to the Raikes Foundation for providing funding for the revision of the series, and the Michigan Department of Education for online course development funding.
| Attachment | Size |
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| Youth Work Methods Series 2011.pdf | 82.77 KB |
The Youth PQA in the Georgetown Divide
This inspiring 12-minute video documents how the Georgetown Divide, a small community in the Sierra foothills of Northern California has embraced a positive youth development approach across the settings where youth spend time and has anchored that commitment through widespread use of the Youth Program Quality Assessment. In this video, school teachers and youth workers reflect on their own practice in powerful ways, and describe how the cycle of assessment, planning and training works. District administrators and youth organization leaders describe how they are systematically implementing a low-stakes approach to accountability that has empowered staff, improved practice, and resulted in real change for youth. The Georgetown Divide was one of 12 sites that engaged in quality improvement system-building work as part of the Forum’s Ready by 21 Quality Counts initiative.
Webinar: School's Out: Policy Implications of Quality Accountability and Assessment in Afterschool Programs
Research during the last decade provides evidence that high-quality afterschool and youth development programs can positively influence a range of child and youth outcomes, including academic, social, and emotional behaviors and development.
The success of afterschool programs, however, rests largely with their quality. Join us for a look at approaches to quality improvement, assessment, and accountability in afterschool programs in states and local communities around the country and the implications for policy.
In this webinar, panelists will highlight Prime Time, a nonprofit intermediary of community stakeholders in Palm Beach County aiming to enhance the quality of afterschool programs through a county-wide Quality Improvement System (QIS). This system provides a case study of what is referred to as a "lower-stakes" accountability model, in which the focus is less on periodic ratings of quality and more on continuous quality improvement. Panelists will discuss what is meant by "high-stakes" and "low-stakes" accountability and describe the development and implementation of the QIS by Prime Time.
Panelists:
- Tabitha Grossman, Senior Policy Analyst, Education Division, National Governors Association Center for Best Practices
- Charles Smith, Executive Director, David P. Weikart Center for Youth Program Quality and Vice President of Research, The Forum for Youth Investment
- Julie Spielberger, Research Fellow, Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago
- Moderator: Patrick Boyle, editor, Youth Today
This webinar occurred on October 14, 2010. To view a recording of the webinar, click here.
Three Southeast Communities to Improve Quality in Youth Programming
Ready by 21 Awards Three Strong Communities with Quality Improvement & Asset Building Challenge Grants
The Ready by 21 National Partnership is proud to announce the awardees of the Ready by 21 Quality Improvement & Asset Building Challenge Grants (Q&A Challenge). Wicomico County, MD; Asheville, NC; and Ft. Myers, FL showed a broad cross-sector commitment building assets for children and youth and so were selected to be part of the Q&A Challenge first cohort.
The Q&A Challenge is a research-based technical assistance model designed to help communities systematically assess developmental assets in a population of children and youth and then improve the quality of out-of-school time setting where these children and youth spend time. The Q & A Challenge represents an advance in community level efforts to align out-of-school time programmatic resources with community-specific profiles of developmental assets. The Q&A Challenge was made possible by generous support from Philip Morris USA, an Altria Company.
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| QA Challenge announcement.pdf | 160.66 KB |