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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.

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Program Description

Overview YS-CARE (Youth Services-Child Care, Academic Assistance, Recreation, and Enrichment) is designed to offer a safe environment after school and during the summer for children in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) in supervised school sites. Through this no-cost program, children engage in stimulating and enriching experiences that reinforce the school curriculum and cultivate their strengths. The program is targeted to provide services at schools with the highest concentrations of families involved in California's “welfare-to-work” program, the California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids (CalWORKs) Program. In addition to children whose families are recipients of CalWORKs funds, other students at the associated school sites may also participate in YS-CARE.
Start Date January 2000
Scope local
Type after school, summer/vacation
Location urban
Setting public school
Participants elementary school students (grades 1–5)
Number of Sites/Grantees 28 elementary schools in 2000 and 71 elementary schools in 2003
Number Served unknown
Components The following components are offered at all YS-CARE sites on a daily basis:

Childcare – YS-CARE provides after school childcare for a minimum of four hours per day at year-round and traditional calendar schools on all school days, immediately following the final dismissal bell. Operating hours are extended to accommodate early dismissal days. During the summer break at schools with traditional calendars, YS CARE operates six hours daily for eight weeks. Well-balanced snacks are provided daily.

Academic Assistance – Trained personnel provide participants with academic assistance and language development activities for 40 minutes daily. A credentialed teacher provides program management as well as diagnostic and prescriptive assistance to program staff at each YS-CARE site. Daily lessons are planned that engage children in activities that support academic achievement. Age-appropriate educational support materials designed to enhance student learning and performance in reading, math, science, and social studies are provided at each site, including library books, recreational reading materials, literacy kits, and other materials, such as the Brainchild computer system and software (Brainchild Corporation, Naples, Florida).

Recreation – Recreation instruction is offered for 40 minutes daily. Activities include multicultural activities, rhythmic activities, team activities, skill games, cooperative games, and quiet games. The goal of these activities is to promote youth's development of a positive self-image, body awareness, physical fitness, sportsmanship, leadership skills, teamwork, cooperative social skills, character building, and a desire to make recreation an integral and important part of their daily lives.

Enrichment – Planned enrichment activities are the centerpiece of YS-CARE. Activities are conducted by traveling enrichment program staff or site personnel for 40 minutes daily and include: theater arts, quilting, drumming, square dance, singing, music, modern dance, arts and crafts, science, painting and drawing, good grooming, and storytelling. These activities stimulate students to explore new horizons, experience different cultures, expand creativity, broaden their base of knowledge, and increase their repertoire of learned skills.
Funding Level unknown
Funding Sources City of Los Angeles, Los Angeles Unified School District
Other In recognition of the need for quality childcare, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approved the After School Enrichment Program to provide educational, health, social, recreational, and cultural programs at 225 elementary schools identified as being in high need areas—areas having the highest concentrations of CalWORKs-aided children. Under this program, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Social Services contracted with the Youth Services Section of the LAUSD to develop and implement YS-CARE.


Evaluation

Overview This evaluation examines the YS-CARE program's academic and behavioral outcomes during its first year of implementation at the initial 28 elementary schools.

Evaluators: Joan Bissell, Cynthia Dugan, Ann Ford-Johnson, and Peter Jones, from the Collaborative After School Project, Department of Education, University of California, Irvine; and James Ashurst, from Research Support Services
Evaluators Joan Bissell, Cynthia Dugan, Ann Ford-Johnson, and Peter Jones, from the Collaborative After School Project, Department of Education, University of California, Irvine; and James Ashurst, from Research Support Services
Evaluations Profiled Evaluation of the YS-CARE After School Program for California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids (CalWORKS): 2002
Evaluations Planned unknown
Report Availability Bissell, J., Dugan, C., Ford-Johnson, A., & Jones, P. (2002). Evaluation of the YS-CARE After School Program for California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids (CalWORKS): 2002. Department of Education, University of California-Irvine.
Available at www.gse.uci.edu/asp/aspeval/resources/resources.html.


Contacts

Evaluation Joan Bissell, Ph.D.
Dean
College of Education & Integrated Studies
California State Polytechnic University, Pomona
3801 W. Temple Avenue
Pomona, CA 91768
Tel: 909-869-2307
Email: jsbissell@csupomona.edu
Program Bruce A. Aubry
Project Director
YS-CARE
5607 Capistrano Avenue
Woodland Hills, CA 91367
Tel: 818-904-2136
Fax: 818-883-6208
Email: yscare@aol.com
Profile Updated May 10, 2004

Evaluation: Evaluation of the YS-CARE After School Program for California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids (CalWORKS): 2002


Evaluation Description

Evaluation Purpose To assess YS-CARE's effectiveness by addressing four questions: (1) Do participants show improvements on academic achievement and behavioral outcomes after participation compared to the previous year? (2) Do participants show larger gains in outcomes than matched nonparticipants? (3) Are there participant subgroups who show larger gains than other participant subgroups? (4) Are there subgroups of participants that show larger benefits from YS-CARE than others as compared to matched nonparticipants?
Evaluation Design Quasi-Experimental: The evaluation questions described above were explored using a samples of students from the 28 elementary schools that were the initial YS-CARE sites. Participants and comparable nonparticipants were selected from the same classrooms by the regular day teacher.

The entire treatment group consisted of 567 YS-CARE participants who participated for at least one full year. The number of participants included in this evaluation varied among the 28 schools, ranging from 10–34 students per school (mean = 20). Most participants (97.4%) were in grades two through five: 30.5% were in second grade, 24.7% were in third grade, 27.9% were in fourth grade, and 14.3% were in fifth grade. The rest were in first grade (1.9%) and sixth grade (0.4%). These study participants included nearly equal numbers of boys (n = 283) and girls (n = 284). The majority were Hispanic (77.6%), about one-fifth (20.8%) were African American, and the rest were white (1.2%), Asian (0.2%), and Filipino (0.2%). Ninety-six percent received free or reduced-cost meals at school. More than half (57.1%) were classified as Limited English Proficient (LEP) and another 11.8% were in the category Fluent English Proficient (FEP), indicating that they had earlier been in the LEP category. Participants in this evaluation tended to fall in the middle of the English as a Second Language (ESL) scale, which has five levels of proficiency.

In the year prior to the program, almost two-thirds (62.8%) were ranked in the lowest quartile of the SAT-9 Reading test and a little less than half (46.3%) were in the lowest quartile of the SAT-9 Math test. The mean SAT-9 Normal Curve Equivalent (NCE) score was 31.9 for reading and 38.9 for math, below the national median of 50 for each. At baseline, participants were generally given ratings in the middle of the four-point scale on the District Reading Achievement measure, with nearly two-fifths (38.9%) receiving a rating of 2 and a little over two-fifths (43.1%) receiving a rating of 3. Research questions 1 and 3 were investigated using all 567 of these students.

Research questions 2 and 4 were addressed with a subsample of these 567 participants, using a multifactor matched pair methodology that matched a comparison group of nonparticipants to YS-CARE participants using a two-step protocol. First, a set of primary matching variables was used: school attended, grade level, English teacher, gender, and SAT-9 Reading NCE score within 10 points. A second set of criteria was used to create the best possible matches: language status, participation in free or reduced-cost meal program, and ethnicity. This process resulted in matches for 350 of the 567 participants. The groups were comparable at baseline in terms of attendance measures and scores on the SAT-9 Math and District Reading Achievement, although significant differences were observed for teacher ratings of work and study habits and citizenship—for all items, nonparticipants received significantly higher ratings (at the .05 level) than participants.

For questions 2 and 4, demographic data on which the groups were matched are reported for all 700 students combined (since the two groups inherently did not differ in these areas due to the matching process). Of these 700 students, just under 98% received free or reduced-cost meals. Nearly 60% had language classifications of LEP status, most of whom were at the third level of ESL proficiency. On baseline SAT-9 Reading scores, almost two-thirds (64.5%) were in the lowest quartile nationally. The sample was concentrated in grades two through five and was fairly evenly divided between boys (49.4%) and girls (50.6%). The majority were Hispanic (80.6%) but there was also a large group of African-American students (18.1%); the rest were white (1.0%) and Asian (0.3%).

In the findings, statistical significance is noted in analyses where comparison groups were used; if statistical significance is not noted, the analyses did not use comparison groups.
Data Collection Methods Secondary Sources/Data Review: The following data were obtained on participants and comparison students from student records maintained by LAUSD: grade level for 2000–2001, English teacher for 2000–2001, English language learner (ELL) status for 1999–2000 and 2000–2001, gender, free or reduced-cost meal program status for 2000–2001, and ethnicity. In addition, student cumulative files maintained at each school site provided data on the number of days that students were enrolled in and absent from school.

Surveys/Questionnaires: Surveys were collected from students, participants' parents, regular day teachers, and YS-CARE staff at 25 of the 28 schools. On some items, surveys used five-point scales, with one scale rating agreement from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree” and another rating frequency from “never” to “every day.”

The youth survey was administered to YS-CARE participants and nonparticipants and consisted of four sections. One asked students to rate the frequency of behaviors and feelings in the past 30 days related to school, studying, homework, and safety. A second section asked students to rate their agreement with statements about school-related behavior and experiences. In a third section, YS-CARE participants were asked to rate their agreement with statements about the program. The final section asked nonparticipants why they had not participated. Response rates for participants ranged from 36% to 100%, with all but eight sites over 60%. Nonparticipants had lower response rates. Of the respondents, 50% of participants and 47% of nonparticipants were boys, and 50% of participants and 53% of nonparticipants were girls. Respondents were predominately in the third through fifth grades and were fairly evenly divided among these three grade levels.
The participant parent surveys contained five items that asked them to report their perceptions of their children's behavior and feelings during the past 30 days. It also included items that elicited parental attitudes about YS-CARE and its benefits to their child. Since many of the parents only read Spanish, the survey was distributed in both Spanish and English. At half of the sites, response rates were over 55%.

The teacher survey instrument asked teachers to rate their level of agreement with a series of nine statements about YS-CARE and its benefits. Surveys were given to 154 classroom teachers whose students participated in YS-CARE. Sixty-five percent of the teachers were female and 35% were male. One hundred of the teachers had a bachelor's degree and the remaining 50 respondents who answered this item had at least a master's degree. Forty percent had two to five years of teaching experience, another 25% had six to ten years of experience, and only 8% were first-year teachers.

The YS-CARE staff survey used the five-point agreement scale on all items and consisted of two sets of questions. The first contained questions about the effectiveness of YS-CARE and its benefits to participating students. The second asked about specific challenges to program implementation. This anonymous survey was collected from 198 staff members. At half of the sites, response rates were 60% or higher.

Test/Assessments: Academic outcome measures were collected from LAUSD's records and included baseline and follow-up scores on the SAT-9 Reading and Math tests taken in spring 2000 and spring 2001, the LAUSD Reading Achievement measure, and the LAUSD Work and Study Habits and Citizenship measures. Reading Achievement scores, which consisted of a four-point ordinal scale, were available for 427 students. Work and Study Habits and Citizenship measures included teacher ratings of students on five work and study habits items (use of time, works independently, organizes materials, neat/careful work, and completes homework on time) and nine citizenship items (follows direction, accepts and respects authority, cooperates in groups, shows dependability, takes responsibility, exercises self-control, resolves conflicts, interactions with peers, and fair play). SAT-9 scores are computed as Normal Curve Equivalent (NCE) scores.
Data Collection Timeframe Data were collected during the 2000–2001 school year, with data collected for the current and previous school year.


Findings:
Formative/Process Findings

Parent/Community Involvement Eighty percent of program staff agreed somewhat or strongly that getting support from parents had not been difficult.
Program Context/Infrastructure The majority of participants (96%) strongly or somewhat agreed that they felt safe at YS-CARE. Similarly, all parents (100%), as well as most program staff (98%) and teachers (96%), strongly or somewhat agreed that YS-CARE provided a safe place for students after school.

Seventy-five percent of program staff agreed somewhat or strongly that securing adequate supplies and materials had not been difficult.
Program-School Linkages Fifty-eight percent of program staff agreed somewhat or strongly that getting access to facilities had not been difficult.

Sixty-four percent of program staff agreed somewhat or strongly that getting cooperation from schoolteachers had not been difficult.
Recruitment/Participation When asked why they had not participated in YS-CARE, 50% of nonparticipants said they did not know about the program when it began, 44% said that they did not know what YS-CARE did, 32% reported that they were on the waiting list, 22% said that they did not like YS-CARE activities, and 22% reported that they had family responsibilities after school.

Sixty-one percent of the staff agreed either somewhat or strongly that recruiting YS-CARE students had not been difficult. A higher percentage (73%) agreed somewhat or strongly that retaining these students had not been difficult.
Satisfaction All parents (100%), as well as the majority of teachers (94%) and program staff (96%), agreed either somewhat or strongly that YS-CARE was an excellent program.

Eighty-five percent of participants strongly or somewhat agreed that they wanted to come back to YS-CARE the following year.

The majority of participants (94%) and program staff (93%), as well as all parents (100%), strongly or somewhat agreed that students liked YS-CARE activities.
Staffing/Training Sixty-one percent of program staff agreed somewhat or strongly that recruiting YS-CARE instructors had not been difficult. A similar percentage (62%) also agreed somewhat or strongly that retaining these instructors had not been difficult.

Eighty-one percent of program staff somewhat or strongly agreed that staff training helped the staff meet the needs of students.

Ninety-one percent of participants and 99% of parents strongly or somewhat agreed that YS-CARE teachers and other adults were easy to talk to.


Summative/Outcome Findings

Academic Results indicated improvements on achievement measures among YS-CARE participants from baseline to follow up. The mean SAT-9 Reading NCE score rose from 32 to 34.1, which was significant (p<.001). The mean SAT-9 Math NCE score increased from 39.3 to 40.3, which was nearly significant (p<.07). The mean Reading Achievement score increased from 2.6 to 2.8 on a four-point scale, which was significant (p<.001).

The LEP YS-CARE students showed a particularly large improvement in SAT-9 Math NCE scores, with its mean gain of 3.42 significantly greater than that of other groups (p<.009). In addition, both the LEP and FEP participants showed larger gains on SAT-9 Reading NCE scores than other groups, although these differences were not significant.

Gains registered on the SAT-9 varied by grade level, with the smallest gains registered for second graders. Evaluators caution that it is not clear whether this reflected real differences or language barriers that affected second graders' test-taking ability.

The results demonstrated that the participant group made larger gains in SAT-9 Reading, SAT-9 Math, and Reading Achievement than the comparison group, although the differences were not statistically significant.

Among students who scored in the lowest reading quartile on the SAT-9 at baseline, the magnitude of gains was larger for YS-CARE participants than nonparticipants on all three scores, although the differences did not reach significance.

Among students who scored in the lowest math quartile on the SAT-9 at baseline, the magnitude of gains was greater for the participant group on all three scores—SAT-9 Reading, SAT-9 Math, and LAUSD Reading Achievement measure—than for the matched nonparticipants.

Among students who scored in the lowest reading decile on the SAT-9 at baseline, participants experienced significantly greater gains in SAT-9 NCE reading scores (p=.03) and nearly significantly greater gains in math scores (p=.06) than nonparticipants.

Among students who scored in the lowest math decile on the SAT-9 at baseline, there were no patterns of differences favoring participants over nonparticipants.

Among LEP students, the magnitude of gains was greater for participants than nonparticipants on all three achievement measures. The differences did not reach statistical significance, but large standard deviations again may have affected tests of statistical significance.

Follow-up data rating students' work and study habits showed notable improvements among YS CARE participants and provided evidence suggesting that the program helped participants close some of the gaps that favored the matched nonparticipant group at baseline. Differences for “works independently” and “homework on time” were no longer statistically significant, although significant differences (p<.05) remained for the remaining three items (use of time, organizes materials, and neat/careful work).

The majority of participants' parents (88%) reported that their children wanted to go to school every day. However, there were no significant differences between participants and nonparticipants in the frequency with which students reported wanting to go to school.

YS-CARE participants were significantly more likely than nonparticipants to report being involved in school activities (p<.001).

Participants were significantly more likely to report that someone helped them with homework after school than nonparticipants (p<.001).

The majority of participants (94%) agreed somewhat or strongly that YS-CARE helped them with their homework. Similarly, 97% each of parents and program staff and 93% of teachers agreed somewhat or strongly that YS-CARE helped students improve their homework.

YS-CARE participants were significantly more likely than nonparticipants to report always finishing their homework (p=.02). Similarly, 96% of the parents, 93% of program staff, and 92% of teachers agreed somewhat or strongly that YS CARE students finished their homework.

Forty-one percent of participants' parents said that their children studied hard for a test every day, while an additional 31% said their children did so a few times a week. However, there were no significant differences between participants and nonparticipants in the frequency with which students reported studying hard for a test.

No significant differences were found in school attendance between participants and matched nonparticipants after one year.

More than half of the teachers (54%) expressed an opinion regarding whether YS CARE had an effect on grade retention. Nearly all respondents on this topic judged that YS CARE reduced the probability of in-grade retention, with only six teachers reporting that they did not believe that YS-CARE reduced in-grade retention.

Eighty-two percent of the teachers and 87% of program staff somewhat or strongly agreed that YS-CARE helped ELL students learn English oral skills.

The majority of participants (93%) strongly or somewhat agreed that they learned a lot in YS-CARE.
Family Eighty-three percent of participants' parents reported talking to their children about homework every day; 3% reported never talking to their children about homework. There were no significant differences between participants and nonparticipants in the frequency that students reported that parents talked them about homework.

Eighty-seven percent of parents agreed strongly or somewhat that someone at home helped their children with homework.
Prevention Ninety-five percent of program staff and 91% of teachers somewhat or strongly agreed that YS-CARE helped students stay out of trouble.
Youth Development Ninety percent of participants, 100% of parents, 88% percent of teachers, and 94% of program staff somewhat or strongly agreed that YS-CARE participants developed new interests and skills.

Follow-up results on teachers' ratings of students' citizenship suggest that YS CARE helped participants close some of the gaps that favored matched nonparticipants at baseline. Specifically, differences for “follows direction,” “fair play,” “takes responsibility,” and “resolves conflicts” were not significant at follow up.

There were no significant differences between the frequency with which participants and nonparticipants reported feeling safe after school.

There were no significant differences between participants and nonparticipants in their level of agreement with the statement that teachers and other adults are easy to talk to.

Ninety-five percent of program staff and 89% of teachers somewhat or strongly agreed that YS CARE reinforced positive behaviors.

Nonparticipants felt unsafe in school significantly more frequently than participants (p<.04). In addition, two-thirds (67%) of participants' parents reported that their children never felt unsafe at school; 9% reported that their children felt unsafe every day.

Sixty-nine percent of participants' parents reported that their children felt safe every day during after school hours, while 7% reported that their children never felt safe after school. No significant differences were found in the frequency with which participants and comparison students reported feeling safe after school.

 

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Published by Harvard Family Research Project