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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.
Select a category below to narrow the list of publications about out-of-school time. Click on a column heading to sort, and then select a title to view the publication. If you are looking for a specific document, topic, or author, visit our Publications & Resources section to conduct an advanced search.
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Ever wonder what libraries around the country are doing to engage families? Learn the answer to this question and others through HFRP and PLA’s national survey of family engagement in public libraries—– the results of which are presented here.
Harvard Family Research Project and the Public Library Association call for libraries to join together with schools and community organizations to establish a system of family engagement that extends throughout a child’s life, supports children and families, and prepares children for success.
Public Library Association (PLA) president Felton Thomas Jr. writes about the importance of public libraries in engaging families, and how PLA and Harvard Family Research Project have begun a journey together to support libraries in this work.
Field experience in evaluation inquiry is a promising approach to preparing the next generation of evaluators. Learn what one group of student consultants and organizations did to make a field experience in evaluative inquiry a positive one.
While evaluation needs may vary, all organizations can benefit from utilizing theory-based evaluation tools to frame evaluation efforts. This article explores how three organizations developed their program’s theory of change and logic model.
Ellen Lettvin from the U.S. Department of Education highlights how the 21st Century Community Learning Centers program is collaborating with various federal agencies to bring STEM into out-of-school time learning.
In this Q & A, S. Craig Watkins discusses the family’s role in the connected learning model, and how students can link what they learn in schools, afterschool programs, and their communities using digital technology.
Engagement in afterschool programming is one way to keep middle and high school youth engaged in their education. Learn about how the Everett Boys & Girls Club located just outside of Boston, uses intentional informality to keep students coming back and wanting more.
To be successful, children need a strong science, technology, engineering, and math foundation. Learn how Iridescent, a project funded in part by the National Science Foundation, connects families, engineers, and children to develop these skills early on in school.
Presidents’ Day is a time to reflect on the importance of leadership. Learn how policymakers, researchers, and practitioners are leading the field of family engagement.
To honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s vision of freedom and justice, we highlight key messages from our contributors about transforming family engagement to promote educational equity.
How do families spend time supporting their children’s informal and formal learning beyond the school day and across settings? Find out how educators and institutions are helping families promote their children’s learning experiences anytime, in school and beyond.
How can you create a resource to help families of young children successfully transition to afterschool? What questions should be addressed? This video looks at one city’s approach to helping connect families and their young children to afterschool enrichment opportunities.
Explore the world of anywhere, anytime learning with us! Read how researchers and practitioners are helping to close the opportunity gap by creating innovative spaces, developing strategic collaborations to ensure children’s success, and engaging families and children as partners in meaningful learning experiences, both in and out of school.
HFRP director Heather B. Weiss examines how families and others involved with children and youth can ensure that children obtain the access, supports, and opportunities that they need to get the full benefits of digital media for learning.
Harvard Family Research Project’s Senior Research Analysts Heidi Rosenberg, Erin Harris, and Shani Wilkes explore how the relationship between families and afterschool is shifting from a focus on increasing afterschool program participation toward a focus on parents’ supporting children’s learning and development in afterschool settings.
Samantha Grant, a program evaluator at the University of Minnesota Extension Center for Youth Development, and a parent, offers guidance to families looking to make good decisions about their children’s out-of-school time activities.
Priscilla Little, an independent consultant working in afterschool research and evaluation, reflects on the transformation of afterschool from being merely a “safe haven” for kids whose parents are working to a core component of a holistic education. She also highlights six strategies for engaging families in afterschool programs.
Jane Werner and Lisa Brahms, from the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh, discuss the Museum’s innovative MAKESHOP studio space, which invites children and families to co-create projects and transforms the traditional museum visit experience.
This is the second brief in our ELO Research, Policy, and Practice series with the National Conference of State Legislatures. In this brief, we explore the ways that families and expanded learning opportunities (ELOs) must work as equal partners in order to ensure ELOs are contributing to children's learning in meaningful ways.
This new book on family involvement in out-of-school time (OST), edited by former HFRP staff members Holly Kreider and Helen Westmoreland, includes information on promising practices, benefits, and concerns related to family involvement in OST, and features a chapter written by former HFRP staff members Suzanne Bouffard, Kelley O’Carroll, Helen Westmoreland, and Priscilla Little.
This issue of The Evaluation Exchange explores the promising practices and challenges associated with taking an enterprise to scale, along with the role that evaluation can and should play in that process. It is the second in our “hard-to-measure” series, which we inaugurated with our Spring 2007 issue on evaluating advocacy.
Our article in Voices for Urban Education makes a research-based case for the federal provision of out-of-school complementary learning supports.
When families, schools, and out-of-school supports work together, children are more likely to succeed. Lisa St. Clair writes about how the Nebraska State Parental Information and Resource Center is using a complementary learning approach to link family support programs with schools, early childhood programs, and out-of-school time programs.
Families play important roles in supporting children’s learning not just in school but also in the many out-of-school contexts in which they learn. Harvard Family Research Project’s Helen Westmoreland talks about how families and nonschool learning settings, such as out-of-school time programs, museums, and libraries, can work together to promote student achievement.