Advocates total community support for families whose children must care for themselves during out-of-school hours while their caregivers are working. (MP)

Conducted a meta-analysis of methodologies used to evaluate after school programs and attempted a synthesis of evaluation findings. Results show that evaluation reports demonstrate moderate compliance with the Program Evaluation Standards of the Joint Committee on Standards for Educational Evaluation but evidence did not allow for meta-analysis of…

The National Center for Community Education provides training to local 21st Century Community Learning Cetners to enable them to provide learning opportunities for children and families. The future will depend on community education programming, community involvement, advocacy, and public will. (JOW)

Discusses how Texas established 21st Century Community Learning Centers in the state. Describes a typical day in a local center and the impact on participants. (JOW)

Parents, schools, and the community no longer share equally in the teaching of youth. Extension after-school programs aid in school enrichment; nontraditional 4-H projects get youth involved in their communities; and traditional 4-H programs and project camps provide adult role models and subject knowledge for youth. (SK)

Describes three schools' efforts to introduce afterschool programs to one middle school (grades 6-8) and two junior high schools (grades 7-9). (ASK)

Adolescents with type 1 diabetes are likely attending most middle and high schools. These youth often do not receive the support needed to manage their diabetes during or after school. Nurses (n = 110) from 3 states responded to a survey examining perceptions of barriers to and supports for diabetes management during school and after school…

How do out-of-school-time (OST) programs get from attendance to active engagement? School researchers propose that engagement is composed of three "ABC" components, affect, behavior, and cognition, which can also be applied to OST programs. Affective engagement refers to positive and negative reactions to teachers, classmates, the academic…

To provide another perspective on evaluation within nonformal settings, "New Directions for Evaluation" recently interviewed David Smith, the coordinator of the Professional Learning to Close the Achievement Gap program for the Kansas City, Kansas, Public Schools, who has extensive background in education and educational research. He formerly held…

The Harvard Family Research Project conducted a research study on the factors associated with whether youth participate in organized out-of-school time (OST) programs and activities. National data was used to examine the many factors and contexts in children's lives that predict their participation. This research summary synthesizes findings from…

This brief represents part 2 in a series on fostering the adoption of evidence-based practices in out-of-school time programs. Many practitioners lack information on how to implement evidence-based practice(s) in their own programs or communities. A major reason for this gap is a lack of research on the process for implementing evidence-based…

Community partnerships are the cornerstone of some of the most successful afterschool programs. For example, the average afterschool program funded by a 21st Century Community Learning Centers (21st CCLC) grant leverages resources through relationships with at least six local organizations. Higher education institutions are one of the most…

The term "sports-based youth development programs" is coined and defined in the context of the community youth development framework. Sports-based youth development programs are out-of-school-time programs that use a particular sport to facilitate learning and life skill development in youth. Community youth development programs use a community…

Disadvantaged students who regularly attend top-notch after-school programs end up, after two years, academically far ahead of peers who spend more out-of-school time in unsupervised activities, according to findings from an eight-state study of those programs. Known as the Promising Afterschool Programs study, the new research examined 35…

Program evaluators need methods that can be used in a variety of situations to help gather data. Photolanguage is one such technique that uses black-and-white photographs to elicit responses from individuals. It is particularly useful in situations where the respondents may give restricted or only minimal data. This article provides the…