The latest Tweets from L.A.C.E.R. The award-winning L.A.C.E.R. Afterschool Programs provide public school students with free arts, sports & academics after school. Literacy Arts Culture Education Recreation. Solis, and in collaboration with the City of Los. All proceeds raised go directly to LEARN’s programs that provide youth opportunities. Aspire Through the ASPIRE after school. Afterschool Programs Make a Difference: Findings From the Harvard Family Research Project. Home . Featured in the brief are studies that evaluate large afterschool programs with experimental or quasi- experimental designs.
The authors, Priscilla M. Little, Christopher B. Weiss, drew on those evaluations to address two primary questions: 1) Does participation in after school programs make a difference, and, if so, 2) What conditions appear to be necessary to achieve positive results? In this article, we summarize their findings and discuss the characteristics of programs leading to positive student outcomes. Does participation in afterschool programs make a difference? According to Little, Wimer, and Weiss,The short answer is yes. Academic Achievement. Afterschool programs can have an impact on academic achievement. Improved test scores are reported in evaluations of The After- School Corporation (TASC) programs in New York City (Reisner, White, Birmingham, & Welsh, 2. White, Reisner, Welsh, & Russell, 2. Foundations, Inc. A more recent longitudinal study showed significant gains in math test scores for elementary and middle- school students who participated in high- quality afterschool programs (Vandell, Reisner, & Pierce, 2. Lauer, Akiba, Wilkerson, Apthorp, Snow, & Martin- Glenn, 2. The HFRP brief emphasizes that many studies “repeatedly underscore the impact of supporting a range of positive learning outcomes, including academic achievement, by affording children and youth opportunities to learn and practice new skills through hands- on, experiential learning,” (p. Citizen Schools (Espino, Fabiano, & Pearson, 2. Fabiano, Pearson, & Williams, 2. LA’s BEST (Huang, Coordt, La Torre, Leon, Miyoshi, & P. These programs not only offered academic support to improve academic performance, but also combined it with other enrichment activities to achieve positive academic outcomes. Little, Wimer, and Weiss noted,Thus, extra time for academics by itself may be necessary but may not be sufficient to improve academic outcomes. Balancing academic support with a variety of engaging, fun, and structured extracurricular or co- curricular activities that promote youth development in a variety of real- world contexts appears to support and improve academic performance. Social and Emotional Development. Programs with a strong intentional focus on improving social and personal skills were found to improve students’ self- esteem and self- confidence (Durlak & Weissberg, 2. Examples include Go Grrls, an Arizona program of structured group sessions that helps improve girls’ body image, assertiveness, self- efficacy, and self- liking (Le. Croy, 2. 00. 3) and mentoring programs such as Across Ages (Taylor, Lo. Sciuto, Fox, & Hilbert, 1. Prevention of Risky Behaviors. The hours after school, between 3 p. Research and evaluation studies have shown that participation in afterschool programs have a positive impact on juvenile crime and help reduce pregnancies, teen sex, and boys’ marijuana use (Goldschmidt, Huang, & Chinen, 2. Philliber, Kaye, & Herrling, 2. Philliber, Kaye, Herrling, & West, 2. Health and Wellness. The afterschool setting presents an opportunity to address the growing problem of obesity among children and youth. Research has shown that afterschool programs can contribute to healthy lifestyles and increased knowledge about exercise and nutrition. Girlfriends for KEEPS (Story, et al., 2. Medical College of Georgia’s Fit. Kid program (Yin, Gutin, Johnson, Hanes, Moore, Cavnar, et al., 2. Connecticut afterschool programs (Mahoney, Lord, & Carryl, 2. What conditions appear to be necessary to achieve positive results? Little, Wimer, and Weiss wrote that while afterschool programs “have the potential to impact a range of positive learning and development outcomes,” some programs do not maximize this potential. They identified the following three factors as critical to achieving positive youth outcomes: Access to and sustained participation in the program. Quality programming and staffing. Strong partnerships among the program and other places where students are learning, such as their schools, their homes, and other community institutions. Access to and Sustained Participation. The HFRP brief discussed a number of research syntheses (American Youth Policy Forum, 2. Redd, Cochran, Hair, & Moore, 2. Simpkins- Chaput, Little, & Weiss, 2. After School Matters program in Chicago (Goerge, Cusick, Wasserman, & Gladden, 2. Louisiana’s 2. 1st Century Community Learning Center (CCLC) program (Jenner & Jenner, 2. LA’s Best (Huang, et al., 2. Much like gaps among students in regular day school, Little, Wimer, and Weiss noted differences among students whose families have higher incomes and more education and those students whose families are less advantaged. Are more likely to participate in afterschool activities. Do so with greater frequency during the week. Participate in a greater number of different activities within the week or month. Are more likely to participate in enrichment programs, whereas disadvantaged students are more likely to participate in tutoring programs. Quality Programming and Staffing. According to Little, Wimer, and Weiss, research on the quality of afterschool programs is mostly descriptive, with only “a handful of rigorously designed studies.” They have drawn from a set of studies they describe as “a small but powerful set of studies.”Regarding program structure and supervision, Little, Wimer, and Weiss (p. Without the structure and supervision of focused and intentional programming, youth participants in after school programs, at best, can fail to achieve positive outcomes and, at worst, can begin to perform worse than their peers” (Vandell, Pierce, Brown, Lee, Bolt, & Dadisman, 2. Pearson, Russell, & Reisner, 2. They continue, “In fact, some research finds that when youth are concentrated together without appropriate structure and supervision, problematic behavior follows, suggesting that focused, intentional activities with appropriate structure and supervision are necessary to keep youth on an upward trajectory and out of trouble” (Jacob & Lefgren, 2. In a meta- analysis of the impact of 7. Durlak and Weissburg (2. Sequenced – Used sequenced set of activities designed to achieve skill development objectives. Active – Used active forms of learning to help students develop skills. Focused – Devoted program components to developing personal or social skills. Explicit – Targeted explicit personal or social skills. Other studies (Gerstenblith, Soule, Gottfredson, Lu, Kellstrom, Womer, et al., 2. Arbreton, Goldsmith, & Sheldon, 2. According to Little, Wimer, and Weiss, the quality of a program’s staff is one of the most critical features of a high- quality afterschool program. A follow- up study to the TASC evaluation found that positive relationships were found in sites where staff modeled positive behavior, actively promoted student mastery of the skills or concepts presented in activities, listened attentively to participants, frequently provided individualized feedback and guidance during activities, and established clear expectations for mature, respectful peer interactions (Birmingham, Pechman, Russell, & Mielke, 2. Other research found that in low- quality programs, the staff “engaged in negative and punitive interactions with youth” instead of “engaging in supportive behavior and practicing positive behavior management techniques” (Vandell, Shumow, & Posner, 2. Gerstenblith, et al., 2. Strong Partnerships. Little, Wimer, and Weiss also found: Strong partnerships are more than a component of program quality. However, strong partnerships are more than a component of program quality: they are becoming a nonnegotiable element of supporting learning and development across all the contexts in which children learn and develop. After School in the 2. Century. Little, Wimer, and Weiss summarize: The research and evaluation studies and syntheses highlighted in this brief demonstrate how complex a task it is to provide high quality, effective supports for youth and their families, but they also provide powerful evidence that after school programs do work when key factors are addressed—factors of access, sustained participation, program quality and strong partnerships. They also conclude that the research and evaluation results from the past decade raise the following important questions about the future of afterschool programs and their role: Moving forward, how can the research- based practices known to be effective in after school programs be adopted more broadly within after school programs and other expanded learning models? How can after school programs work with schools, families, and other community and health supports to ensure a complementary array of learning and developmental supports across the day, the year, and the developmental continuum from kindergarten through high school? Moving forward, how can and should “success” of after school programs be measured, particularly as the field moves toward greater emphasis on shared responsibility and partnerships? How can choice be built into after school and extended day options to ensure that programs are responsive to the needs of working families and youth participants alike? About the Studies Included in HFRP Brief. According to lead author Priscilla Little, the authors of the brief did not do an exhaustive review of all studies available or conduct a systematic review, but rather took a “seminal studies” approach to examine and include those studies which best represented a range of outcomes, practices, and settings. The set of studies was then reviewed by leading researchers in the field who validated that this set was indeed representative of the wealth of available information. References. American Youth Policy Forum. Helping youth succeed through out- of- school time programs. Washington, DC: Author.
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