News
"Work in Progress" Webinar Series
This webinar series will present periodic updates, lessons learned, and research findings from our work on quality assessment, accountability and improvement systems.
The first webinar is about the Technical Assistance and Coaching Support Services Initiative (TACSS) for Michigan 21st Century Community Learning Center grantees. TACSS was designed to improve the quality of afterschool experiences available to Michigan students and provides an example of a state of the art accountability and improvement policy successfully implemented at scale. This webinar will provide information on the elements of the TACSS model, implementation successes and challenges, and the foundational partnership between state education agency, non-profit research and technical assistance organization, and university-based evaluation team.
This webinar will be of particular interest to persons who are:
- Building accountability and improvement models focused on the quality of instruction and adult-child interaction.
- Using or considering the Youth Program Quality Assessment or Youth Program Quality Intervention.
- Administering budgets dedicated to program monitoring, professional development and evaluation.
This webinar occurred on June 15, 2010 and July 13, 2010. View a recording of these sessions by clicking on the dates.
Other webinars in this series:
- Date TBD: The Youth Program Quality Intervention Research Findings
- Date TBD: Low Stakes Accountability
The Ready by 21® Quality Improvement & Asset Building (Q&A) Challenge
An Opportunity for Three Southeast Communities to Take a Big Picture Approach to Tracking Quality in OST Programs
In cities and states throughout the country, dedicated and passionate leaders are seeking practical, evidence-based strategies for improving young peoples’ readiness for college, work and life. Leaders are interested in bringing data-driven precision to their passion for improving youth well-being; unfortunately, progress is often hindered by rigid organizational boundaries, lack of coordination across providers, incomplete quality and performance data and limited know-how. This is particularly true in the out-of-school time (OST) sector where historically it has been difficult to measure, modify and manage aspects of youth program quality associated with positive developmental outcomes for youth.
The Ready by 21 National Partnership wants to remove these barriers and help leaders more efficiently and effectively answer key questions: How good are OST programs in my community? Are they efficiently organized to make a positive impact in the lives of the young people they serve? Two national partners and their local affiliates – United Way Worldwide and the National Collaboration for Youth – are intimately involved in OST programming and have a vested interest in building local capacity in this sector.
Thanks to generous support from Philip Morris USA, an Altria Company, the Partnership is pleased to announce the Quality Improvement & Asset Building (Q&A) Challenge – a research-based model designed to help communities systematically improve the quality of available OST programming to increase youth access to key developmental and learning experiences that help them build skills and reduce risky behaviors. The Ready by 21 Partnership will make three (3) competitive Q&A Start-Up awards available to mid-sized cities in the Southeast that are interested in deploying this intervention across a broad spectrum of youth serving organizations. Each Q&A community will receive training and technical assistance from the David P. Weikart Center for Youth Program Quality, valued at $15,000-$20,000, to:
- build momentum and implement the Q&A Intervention in 10 pilot sites that serve youth age 10 and up;
- build capacity in a local intermediary organization to support the work; and
- work with local United Ways, school districts and/or public and private funders to develop a community-level plan to scale and sustain the Q&A Intervention.
Interested communities should register for one of two informational webinars on June 10th and 11th.
June 10th, 2:00pm EDT: https://forumfyi.ilinc.com/register/cyvpzmf
June 11th, 10:00am EDT: https://forumfyi.ilinc.com/register/ywcxjvf
Applications (no more than 5 pages) are due Friday, June 18th. Preference will be given to communities that have engaged funders, existing intermediary capacity to provide training and support to a range of providers, and a network of providers interested in quality improvement.
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| RB21 QA Challenge Flyer -- FINAL.pdf | 53.94 KB |