The Harvard Family Research Project separated from the Harvard Graduate School of Education to become the Global Family Research Project as of January 1, 2017. It is no longer affiliated with Harvard University.
Volume VI, Number 1, Fall 2000
Issue Topic: Out-of-School Time Issue #1
Beyond Basic Training
Investing in Those Who Invest in our Youth
Linda Lausell Bryant, Director of Training at Partnership for After School Education, describes their New York City-based coalition committed to quality after school programs.
It’s 3:00 p.m. Do you know where our children are?
History of PASE
In New York City in 1993, the Partnership for After School Education (PASE) began with a small group of leaders from youth development and literacy who sought to answer this question. They knew that for too many of the city’s children, 3:00 to 6:00 p.m. was a time of detrimental extracurricular activity where children were learning “skills” such as violence, premature sexual activity, and drug dealing. This small group of youth leaders believed in the value and need for high quality after school programs and sensed that after school education was an idea whose time had come. Determined to offer the city’s children a better set of skills, they recognized the need for coalition building and resource sharing in what was then an isolated, fragmented arena of after school programs. With initial support from New York City youth funders, PASE began to hold forums and conferences where practitioners, often for the first time, received professional development from their more experienced peers.
Since its modest beginning, PASE quickly grew into a network of more than 850 organizations committed to quality after school education. The majority of PASE’s membership consists of neighborhood programs that support families and youth. PASE works to enhance program capacity to serve the diverse needs of children, youth and families by providing training, technical assistance, networking opportunities, agency to agency program mentoring, and program models by tapping the rich talent and expertise that exists within the field.
The Need for Capacity Building in the After School Arena
In New York City and throughout the country, many new initiatives have been launched in the after school arena, resulting in scores of new programs. While many children and families now benefit from these programs, a large gap still exists between the need for programs and their availability. The increase in new programs poses challenges for the field, including:
Quality and Sustainability: The after school field must meet the challenge of providing high quality, sustainable programs to its consumers. In other industries, increased demand often affects quality of service. Poor quality in after school programs is unacceptable, regardless of the field’s growth—a child rarely has the option of choosing another after school program because there aren’t enough from which to choose.
Isolation: In New York City, youth serving agencies have often worked in isolation while competing for the same dollars. Failure to share ideas and best practices seriously limits agencies and results in redundancy and gaps in services, ultimately limiting the capacity of the field.
Diversity: The after school field attracts people from a wide variety of professional backgrounds including education, social work, youth development, and childcare, among others. While this diversity is a strength, it also poses challenges as after school education emerges as a field and codes for professional preparation, training and evaluation are examined.
Meeting the Need
These challenges are the impetus for PASE’s creation and the blueprint for the services we offer. The PASE network allows practitioners to come together to share and learn from one another to build quality programs. This is accomplished through a variety of approaches:
The PASE Training Institute strengthens the capacity of youth agencies by providing ongoing professional development in a range of content areas relevant to managers and line staff.
Peer Technical Assistance Teams, composed of practitioners with skills in a particular area—including literacy, the arts, youth leadership and management—are dispatched to agency sites to provide specific assistance to agencies.
The After School Literature Project is a collaborative effort between the California-based Developmental Studies Center (DSC), PASE, and other agencies across the country. PASE and DSC trainers assist the staff of 30 after school programs to implement DSC’s in-school literacy curriculum, adapted by PASE and DSC for use in after school settings.
PASE General Forums are regular half-day forums that deal with important issues in the field. Topics have included “New Government Funding for After School Programs,” “Practical Strategies for Violence Prevention,” “Integrating the Arts in After School Education,” and “Developing an After School Workforce.” These forums create a wonderful networking opportunity and often serve as an entry point for new staff or new agencies to become involved in PASE.
The PASE Annual Conference explores current issues and enables participants to hear from speakers and choose from a variety of innovative workshops on topics relevant to the creation of quality after school programs.
Agency to Agency Mentoring pairs established youth “mentor” agencies and with “mentee” agencies launching new programs or expanding current ones. Staff at all levels meet on a regular basis to share skills, experiences, and expertise.
In addition to training and technical assistance, PASE strives to create opportunities for modeling best practices. The PASE Learning Lab is designed to showcase the best after school practices. Launched in a Brooklyn middle school, the Lab allows exemplary practitioners to showcase their most innovative and effective programs by working directly with the school’s children for a 10-week cycle. Youth serving professionals from schools, community-based organizations, and foundations, as well as policymakers and parents, observe children engaged in creative and innovative programs and discuss their observations with the practitioners and each other. PASE hopes to establish Learning Labs in each of New York City’s five boroughs.
National Initiatives
All of these approaches help build the capacity of staff from local agencies and, ultimately, in the field as a whole. Interest on the local level initiatives led to a national effort to build capacity in the after school field. PASE’s “peer-driven network” will be replicated in ten cities with an ultimate goal of strengthening the national field of after school education by creating a dynamic, yet consistent, web of organizations that support each other as they support children and youth.
PASE is currently engaged in the process of visiting and networking with several U.S. cities, bringing together after school and education leaders to identify training needs, brainstorm and plan the development of training and peer assistance opportunities within their regions. This process will result in an inventory of training opportunities for in school and out-of-school educators and a proposal of national strategies for addressing gaps in training. As PASE enters the national arena, it will continue to tap into the talent and expertise that already exists in the field.
PASE’s approach to building the after school field is dynamic and flexible and responds to the variety of levels and types of assistance organizations need. The expansion of local initiatives to cities across the nation will broaden the reach of resources, enhance the quality of youth services and increase the visibility of this very important field throughout the country.
Linda Lausell Bryant
Director of Training
Partnership for After School Education (PASE)
120 Broadway, Suite 3048
New York, NY 10271
Tel: 212-571-2664
Email: linda@pasesetter.com
Website: www.pasesetter.com