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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.

A Profile of the Research Study of Family Participation in After-School

Research Description

Overview and Components

This study examined family involvement efforts in Cohort 5 of the 21st Century Community Learning Centers (21st CCLC) program, a group of sites that have received 21st CCLC funding in multiple years and that continue to receive funding. 21st CCLC programs provide expanded learning opportunities for youth in a safe, drug-free, and supervised environment. Administered by the United States Department of Education, the 21st CCLC program provides funding to states to allocate to local educational agencies. Programs are divided into cohorts by the year they receive their first federal grant.

Start Date	Data were collected for this study Spring 2003 through Spring 2004.
Scope	national
Type	after school, summer/vacation, before school, weekend, comprehensive services
Location	urban, suburban, rural
Setting	public schools
Participants	preschool through high school students
Number of Sites/Grantees	1,504 programs in Cohort 5
Number Served	varied by program
Study Details	The study’s first phase examined programs’ efforts to encourage family involvement. The second phase examined several programs with high levels of family involvement to learn specifically about the implementation and efficacy of various family involvement strategies.
Funding Level	$1,000,000,000 in fiscal year 2002; $993,500,000 in fiscal year 2003 (total 21st CCLC funding)
Funding Sources	The program is funded by the United States Department of Education.

Researchers	Abby R. Weiss, Harvard Family Research Project Roblyn A. Brigham, Brigham Nahas Research Associates Carol Sills Strickland and Isabella Jean, Institute for Responsive Education (IRE)
Research Profiled	The Family Participation in After-School Study Promising Practices That Promote Family Participation in After School Programs: Another Link to Positive Educational Outcomes
Research Planned	None
Report Availability	Weiss, A. R., & Brigham, R. A. (2003). The family participation in after-school study. Boston, MA: Institute for Responsive Education. Strickland, C. S. with Jean, I. (2005, April 12). Promising Practices that promote family participation in after school programs: Another link to positive educational outcomes. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Institute for Responsive Education Available at www.responsiveeducation.org/publications.html

Contacts

Research	Abby R. Weiss Project Manager Harvard Family Research Project 50 Church Street, 4th Floor Cambridge, MA 02138 Tel: 617-496-5498 Fax: 617-495-8594 Email: abby_weiss@harvard.edu Linda Peterson Vice President Institute for Responsiveness Education Cambridge College School of Education 80 Prospect St., 3rd Flr. Cambridge, MA 02138 Tel: 617-873-0613 Fax: 617-873-0273 Email: linda.peterson@cambridgecollege.edu
Program	Robert Stonehill Office of Elementary and Secondary Education United States Department of Education 400 Maryland Ave., SW Washington, DC 20208-5524 Tel: 202-260-9737 Email: rstonehi@inet.ed.gov
Profile Updated	October 25, 2006

Research Study 1: The Family Participation in After-School Study

Research Description

Research Purpose	To answer the following questions: What are programs’ family involvement goals? What activities and services are offered to promote family involvement, and what are their range and frequency? How do the frequency and type of family involvement activities differ between programs that have staff assigned to work with families and those that do not? Are there differences in services provided or in family involvement goals based on characteristics such as population served or location?
Research Design	Non-Experimental: Project directors sent surveys to all program coordinators who managed programs under their direction. A total of 1,504 surveys were distributed to coordinators, of which 622 were completed and returned, yielding an overall response rate of 41%. Of the 310 directors who distributed surveys, 195 (63%) had at least one coordinator return a survey. Programs served an average of 232 youth, with 95% serving 600 youth or fewer. The majority of coordinators reported that their programs served youth from low-income families (e.g., 72% served a population in which more than half of youth were eligible for free or reduced-price lunch). Nearly all (98%) programs were housed in public schools and most (87%) were located in the same building as the school the participants attended. According to coordinators, 76% of programs served elementary school students, 44% served middle school students, 20% served high school students, and 12% served preschoolers (52% served more than one grade-level grouping). The average length of time that programs had been in operation was 3.5 years, ranging from 1 to 31 years (many programs were in existence prior to receiving 21st CCLC funds). Analyses compared programs with mostly White youth (25% or less youth of color) to those with mostly youth of color (75% or more youth of color). Results were also examined based on location (urban, suburban, rural) and whether the program had a staff member dedicated to communicating with and developing programming for families, and if so, how much of their time was dedicated to this aspect. In 30% of sites, at least 75% of participants were youth of color, while 40% served fewer than 25% youth of color, and 14% each served 25%–50% or 50%–75% youth of color. Forty-eight percent of programs were in rural areas, 38% in urban areas, and 14% in suburban areas. The majority of sites that served primarily White youth were rural (71%), while the majority of sites that served primarily youth of color were urban (62%). Fifty-four percent of sites had a staff member responsible for working with families, of which 32% dedicated more than 50% of their time to this work.
Data Collection Methods	Surveys/Questionnaires: Survey questions were based on four domains of family involvement in out-of-school time outlined by Caspe, Traub, & Little, 2002: communication with families, family engagement in youth-centered programming, governance and leadership, and services specifically designed and provided for families. In each domain, the survey asked several questions about the type of family involvement activities offered and the frequency with which they were offered. Reference: Caspe, M., Traub, F., & Little, P. (2002). Beyond the head count: Evaluating family involvement in out-of-school time. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Family Research Project.
Data Collection Timeframe	Surveys were administered in the spring of 2003.

Findings:
Formative/Process Findings

Costs/Revenues

Most programs (75%) did not charge a fee to youth participants. Of those that charged for services, three quarters charged on a sliding scale and 72% offered scholarships.

Parent/Community Involvement

Respondents reported that providing food, childcare, and advertising were the keys to getting both a high number of parent participants and repeat participation from parents.

Forty-seven percent of programs employed family members as paid staff, and 60% had family members volunteer; 7% required family members to volunteer or participate.

Most programs (80%) reported family involvement goals related to helping parents support their children/their children’s education. These goals included helping families work with youth to improve academic performance, homework completion, and school attendance (29%); increasing communication between families and program staff about the program and youth’s academics (27%); and increasing parent participation in their children’s education (24%).

Two thirds of coordinators articulated family involvement goals related to meeting parents’ needs and improving family life. These goals included providing parents with: educational opportunities such as classes/training on parenting or job skills (19%); support services and community resource information to improve family life (15%); and recreation and social opportunities to spend leisure time with their children and develop a sense of community (14%). These goals also included improving: parent–child relationships (11%) and family “status” (e.g., helping “healthy families stay together,” 7%).

Thirty percent of programs reported that their primary parent involvement goal was to support program staff and encourage parental buy-in.

Programs communicated with families informally through: chats with parents at drop-off/pick-up (55% of sites regularly [at least once a month], 17% occasionally); phone conversations with family members (34% regularly, 18% occasionally); notes sent to parents about a specific child (34% regularly, 16% occasionally); home visits (4% regularly, 4% occasionally); and email to parents (2% regularly, 5% occasionally).

Programs communicated with families formally through: newsletters distributed to parents (63%, averaging 7 per site per year); meetings/conferences with a family member of each youth (28%, averaging 5 per year); and group meetings for family members (56%, averaging 5 per year).

The majority of coordinators felt that they did “pretty” or “very” well in communicating to families about youth’s behavior (86%), program news (81%), positive news about youth (81%), program schedule (77%), program attendance (70%), academics (66%), and youth’s educational options (65%).

Programs with staff dedicated to family involvement were more likely to reach out to families regularly, both formally and informally. Specifically, programs with designated staff were more likely to do the following occasionally or regularly: speak with families by phone (63% vs. 40%), send notes home (59% vs. 39%), chat informally with families (80% vs. 63%), publish newsletters (68% vs. 55%), hold group meetings with families (68% vs. 42%), and hold parent meetings (37% vs. 18%). Only in the case of email and home visits were no differences found between programs.

Programs offered the following activities for families once a year or more: events that showed youth’s work (79% of programs), engagement of parents in support of their children’s learning through such means as homework help and literacy programs (76%), program orientation (74%), family night (71%), getting to know staff events (60%), parties (54%), informational sessions about educational options such as high school or postsecondary choices (37%), and weekend family excursions (24%).

Programs serving mostly youth of color were more likely than those that served fewer youth of color to offer at least one parent information session about educational options per year (47% vs. 28%) and to host events that gave families a chance to see youth’s work multiple times during the year (63% vs. 45%).

Urban sites were somewhat more likely than other sites to host program orientations and parties for families: 35% of urban sites hosted more than one orientation in the last year, while 27% of suburban and 21% of rural sites did so; and 42% of urban sites held more than one party during the year, while 31% of suburban and 25% of the rural sites did so.

Programs with staff dedicated to family involvement were more likely than those without such staff to engage parents in supporting youth’s learning through such means as homework help and literacy programs (85% vs. 64%). Programs with designated staff were also more likely to offer program orientations, family nights, weekend events, parties, get-to-know-staff events, information sessions on educational options, and events where parents could see youth’s work. The amount of time staff spent on this part of the job was not related to whether programs offered these events.
A majority (84%) of coordinators said that they collected information from parents about their program needs and/or satisfaction with services through parent surveys, focus groups, etc. Programs that served mostly White youth were more likely to collect these data than programs that served mostly youth of color (90% vs. 71%).

Families were involved in program governance/leadership through serving on program advisory boards (60% of programs), helping plan events and activities (53%), working with program staff and community stakeholders to build and change after school services (50%), serving as program evaluators (38%), participating in curriculum development (31%), and having voting rights on program initiatives (17%). However, 28% of programs reported that they did not involve parents in governance/leadership in any of the ways listed on the survey.

Programs that served mostly youth of color were more likely to report that they provided opportunities for families to work to build and change after school services than those serving mostly white youth; programs that served mostly White youth were slightly more likely to conduct needs assessments than those serving mostly youth of color (90% versus 79%).

Programs with designated family involvement staff were more likely to have families involved in program governance and leadership. In addition, programs with designated staff who spent more time on family involvement were more likely than programs whose designated staff spent less time to have family members with voting rights on program initiatives (24% vs.13%) and participating in curriculum development (41% vs. 25%).

In terms of services to support families, the majority of sites facilitated communication between families and schoolteachers/principals (89%) and linked families with social services and other community resources (70%). Many also offered parenting classes (47%), English as a Second Language classes (ESL, 27%), General Educational Development classes (GED, 22%); family literacy programs (43%), and job skills training (13%).

Programs offered the following supports to families to enable and encourage them to participate in the program: 69% provided families with transportation to program activities, 47% provided childcare, and 43% offer translation services for non-English-speaking families.

Programs serving primarily youth of color were more likely than those serving primarily white youth to provide family literacy programs (51% vs. 34%), ESL classes (37% vs. 16%), GED classes (29% vs. 18%), and job skills training (24% vs. 13%).

Programs with designated family involvement staff were more likely to provide the following services to families than those without such staff: family literacy programs (57% vs. 25%. The only differences found between programs with staff that devoted more than 50% of their time to this work to those with staff that devoted less than 50% of their time were in the provision of family literacy programs (68% vs. 53%) and job skills training (36% vs. 20%).

Sixty-one percent of coordinators felt that they were “somewhat successful” and 27% felt they were “very successful” in implementing their family involvement goals.

When asked about major family participation successes, coordinators cited the following: family members participating multiple times in events (29%); well-attended family activity nights and night/weekend classes, especially when performances or food were provided (24%); a general increase in parents’ program participation and volunteerism including chaperoning field trips (22%); showing youth’s work in academics, athletics, and performance (15%); providing support to families such as adult education (12%); and increasing parent communication such as getting families’ input (12%). Successes reported less often included improved: parent satisfaction (8%), parent comfort level at the school/program (6%), family relationships (5%), youth academic performance (4%), and families’ community involvement (3%). Four percent of programs reported that they had no family participation successes.

When asked about challenges in implementing family participation, coordinators cited parents’ work schedules (89%), family culture and language (26%), and residence of families outside of the school neighborhood (19%). In addition, 25% of coordinators indicated “other” challenges, such as “parent apathy” or “lack of parent interest.” Some respondents indicated that parents had many activities and obligations competing for their time and so were unable to commit to program activities. Other reported challenges concerned transportation, childcare, lack of adequate staffing, and funding.

Family language was cited more often as a challenge by coordinators at urban sites (34%) than suburban (23%) or rural (15%) ones.

Supports and resources cited by coordinators as necessary for successful family participation included: more money for parent volunteer incentives, staff training, family activities, and so on (34%); additional staff to work with families (17%); school administration volunteers and support (13%); transportation (11%); better communication between stakeholders (8%); more time, materials, and community support (8%); childcare (6%); and adequate space/ facilities and translation services (5%). A few respondents blamed parents for not participating (6%) and listed incentives used to encourage them to do so (e.g., speakers/instructors, advertising, food, activities).

A Profile of the Research Study of Family Participation in After-School

Profile Information