DOCUMENT RESUME ED 475 873 UD 035 600 AUTHOR Herrera, Carla; Arbreton, Amy J.A. Increasing Opportunities for Older Youth in After-School TITLE Programs. A Report on the Experiences of Boys & Girls Clubs in Boston and New York City. INSTITUTION Public/Private Ventures, Philadelphia, PA. SPONS AGENCY Charles Hayden Foundation, New York, NY. PUB DATE 2003-01-00 NOTE 60p. AVAILABLE FROM Public/Private Ventures, 2000 Market Street, Suite 600, Philadelphia, PA 19103. Tel: 215-557-4400; Fax: 215-557-4469; Web-site: http:// www.ppv.org. PUB TYPE Reports Research (143) EDRS Price MF01/PC03 Plus Postage. EDRS PRICE DESCRIPTORS *Adolescents; *After School Programs; Disadvantaged Youth; High Risk Students; *Outreach Programs; Secondary Education; Urban Areas; *Urban Youth; *Youth Programs IDENTIFIERS Boys Clubs of America; Girls Clubs of America; Massachusetts (Boston); New York (New York) ABSTRACT Boys & Girls Clubs in New York City and Boston participated in a 3-year initiative to provide and enhance services to underserved teens. Researchers collected data via surveys of club members and staff; cost surveys of club administrators; interviews, focus groups, and observations at each club; and attendance information. Results indicated that these voluntary youth-serving organizations drew in many community teens. In 1 year, Boston added from 20-100 new teen members at each club, while New York added from 201-1,100 new teens. Clubs that went beyond recruitment goals experienced difficulty meeting teens' needs. Clubs reached teens with such strategies as increased hours of activities, collaborations with outside agencies, and targeted street outreach. Programs served teens with many needs, though they found this challenging. Sustaining teens' involvement was more difficult than recruitment. Clubs retained a little over half of their target groups for at least a full year. About 40 percent of teens attended less than once a month. Program challenges included hiring appropriate staff, preventing turnover, and providing sufficient staff training. Clubs were quite successful in providing teens with emotional and instrumental support. Over three-quarters of teens reported feeling safe at their clubs. Clubs in both cities invested in improvements in their management information systems. Appendices include youth survey scales and constructs and characteristics of youth survey participants. (Contains 15 references.) (SM) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. e for rt llncreasIn 00 r ouch U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Otlice of Educational Research and Improvement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) This document has been reproduced as received from the person or organization fter-School Programs originating it. Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction quality. Points of view or opinions stated in this document do not necessarily represent official OERI position or policy. Carla Herrera and Amy J.A. Arbreton O PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND .0 DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY Lf) Cr) 511ff M. EST COPY AVAILABLE CP' 2 Public,/ P A Publication of Public/Private Ventures TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) Increasing Opportunities for Older Youth in After-School Programs Board of Directors Research Advisory Public/Private Ventures is a national nonprofit Committee organization that seeks to improve the effectiveness of social policies and programs. P/PV designs, tests Siobhan Nicolau. Chair Jacquelynne S. Eccles and studies initiatives that increase supports, skills Prrsident Chair ' University of Michigan Hispanic Polite Development Project and opportunities of residents of low-income com- Ronald Ferguson Gary Walker munities; works with policymakers to see that the Prrsident Kennedy School of Government Public/Private Ventures Robinson Hollister lessons and evidence produced are reflected in Ama lia Betanzos College Swarthmore policy; and provides training, technical assistance President Alan Krueger Wildcat Service Corporation Princeton University and learning opportunities to practitioners based Yvonne Chan Larson Reed on documented effective practices. Principal Illinois University o f Vaughn Learning Center Katherine S. Newman Mitchell S. Fromstein Kennedy School of Government Chairman Emeritus Laurence Steinberg illanpower Inc. temple University Susan Fuhnnan Thomas Weisner Graduate School of Dean, UCLA Education University of Pen nsyhmnia Christine L. James-Brown President United Way of Southeastern Pennsylvania Jr. John A. Mayer, Retired, Chief Financial glfieer f.P. Morgan & Co. Matthew McGuire Investment Officer Office of the New York State Comptroller Milbrey W McLaughlin David Jacks Professor of Education and Public Policy Stanford University Maurice Lim Miller Ditram- Independence Initiative Fonaly Anne Hodges Morgan Consultant to Foundations Marion Pines Senior &Rom, Institute for Policy Studies Johns Hopkins University Isabel Carter Stewart Executive Director Chicago Foundation for W01711114 Cay Stratton Director National Employment Panel, London U.K. BEST COPY AVAIIABLE 4 Increasing Opportunities for Older Youth in After-School Programs Acknowledgments The research and the initiative described in this Lisa Gale and Zoua yang spent many hours conduct- report were made possible by funding from The ing site visits, collecting and analyzing data, develop- ing and presenting feedback for the clubs on survey Charles Hayden Foundation. We thank them for their support and dedication to creating opportuni- results and training sites in data collection. Jennifer Gera conducted qualitative data analyses for the ties for serving older youth. report, and Marcus Gilmore conducted site visits and This report is the culmination of three years of work analyzed data collected during our focus groups. on the part of many individuals. The evaluation William Kandell helped to conceptualize and gather would not have been possible without the help of the the cost study information. Zoua yang analyzed the teen club members who shared their club experi- MIS data. Chrissy Labs arid Crystal Wyatt managed and processed the incoming data, and Sarah Pepper ences with us by participating in our focus groups expertly analyzed it. Karen Walker, Corina Chavez, and youth surveys. Kathryn Furano, Lisa Gale, Rebecca Raley, Lauren Kotloff and Gary Walker reviewed drafts of the report Staff of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston and and provided insightful comments that honed its Madison Square Boys & Girls Club provided valuable content and structure. Jana Moore edited an early input and feedback on development of the youth version of the report and helped to create its struc- survey, helped to orchestrate survey collection at their clubs, completed our staff survey and com- ture. Malish & Pagonis designed the report. and mented on early drafts of the report. In addition to Maxine Sherman coordinated its publication and dis- the contributions made by club directors, program semination, including the copyediting. directors, initiative staff and other staff members at the clubs, staff in the central officesLinda Whitlock, Bob Monahan, David Brody, Jennifer Allison, Maureen O'Sullivan and Jerry Steimel of the Boston Club, and Anthony Bandelato, Steve Melton, Herb Lowe and Cedric Dew of the New York Clubmanaged the ini- tiative and helped with the administration and coor- dination of the evaluation activities at the clubhouses and with the coordination of several cross-club con- ferences. Club staff s commitment to increasing teens' access to their neighborhoods' clubhouses made the initiative possible. We would also like to thank the P/PV staff whose con- tributions to the study and report were invaluable. Kathryn Furano, Corina Chavez and Lori McClung provided technical assistance to the clubs, and were integral in helping the initiative take shape. The information they gathered during their field visits and their analyses of these data helped form this report. 5 Increasing Opportunities for Older Youth in After-School Programs Contents Executive Summary Introduction I. 1 Were Clubs Able to Reach and Retain Teens? 5 II. Were Clubs Able to Provide Teens with Adult Support? .15 III. IV Were Clubs Able to Create Programming that Benefited Teens? 21 V What Did the Initiatives Cost and How Are 29 They Being Sustained? 35 VI. Lessons Learned 43 Endnotes 45 References Appendices A. Methodology 47 B. Youth Survey Scales and Constructs 51 Tables 8 Risk Factors 1. 16 Adult Support 2. 25 Interesting Activities and Activity-Related Barriers 3. 28 Youth-Reported Academic and Job-Related Benefits 4. . 30 Costs of the Teen Initiatives in Year 2 5. Figures 6 Age of New Teen Members in Boston 1. 6 2. Age of New Teen Members in New York 8 Risk Characteristics of Boston Teens 3. 9 Risk Characteristics of New York Teens 4. 10 Teens' Feelings of Safety in Different Places 5. 24 Types of Leadership Opportunities 6. 26 Activity Participation 7. 6 Executive Summary Executrive Summary Few after-school programs have developed successful strategies for attracting large numbers of teens, espe- cially older and harder-to-serve youth. For example, a study of three communities found that the availabil- ity of programs for and willingness of youth to attend programs showed a decline for youth aged 15 and older (Sipe and Ma, 1.998). In addition, when pro- grams do serve teens, getting them to participate on a regular basis can be challenging. In fact, even when five-day-a-week participation is mandatory, research has found that attendance among middle school youth is much lower than attendance among elemen- tary school youth. A study of 10 after-school pro- grams, for example, found that slightly over half of the middle school youth attended the days for which they were scheduled compared with a little over two- thirds of the elementary school youth (Grossman et al., 2002). Finally, programs struggle with sustaining teens' interest and involvement over time and need to consider the growing autonomy and changing interests of teens to successfully provide them with supports and opportunities that can help them through the challenges of adolescence. In response to the great need for teen programming, three of the eight clubhouses with Madison Square Boys & Girls Club in New York City, and all five clubhouses with Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston participated in a three- year initiative to provide and enhance services to underserved teens. The clubs were successful: they drew large numbers of teens, involved them in a variety of activities, and provided them with emotional support, leadership opportunities and programming in two critical areas, academics and job training. However, the efforts were not without challenges. The initiative was launched in Fall 1998, with grants from The Charles Hayden Foundation, which also provided funds to Public/Private Ventures to pro- vide technical assistance and ongoing evaluative feedback to the clubs and to document the progress of the initiative. What Were the Orultiatives' Goals? When the initiatives began, the Boston and New York organizations were already considering enhancing their efforts to reach underserved youth. Within the framework of developing "teen initiatives," the clubs BEST COPY AVAILA Increasing Opportunities for Older Youth in After-School Programs Similarities in the Clubs' Approaches identified different target groups: Boston felt that all teens in their clubhouse communities were under- Despite differences in the clubs' target groups, the served, particularly because they had been seeing a clubs shared many commonalities in how they dramatic decline in participation among their own planned to achieve their goals, and ultimately shared chtb members when they reached 13, the age at many of the same experiences and challenges. The which youth transition from preteen to teen pro- general approach involved increasing the time, vari- gramming. Thus, Boston focused on retaining 13-year- ety, quality and intensity of programming available to old transitioning club members but also hoped to teens. Specific strategies in both cities included: attract new teen members. In Madison Square, staff targeted teens who were not already involved at the Hiring two new dedicated staff for the teen clubs, who were in trouble, and who might not have initiative; seen the clubs as a place for them without outreach. These different target populations helped shape the Increasing staff time available for recruitment; clubs' goals and strategies. Tracking or monitoring youth's progress on a one-to-one basis; Boston's Goals Boston set three overarching goals for this initiative: Creating collaborations with schools and other community agencies to recruit, refer and track Attract 50 new teens at each clubhouse each of youth's progress; the three years of the initiative; Increasing the amount of time that teens have Involve new and transitioning teens in club pro- access to the clubs; and gramming and retain them, particularly the 13- year- olds moving from 6- to 12-year-old Creating more academic and job-related programming into teen programming; and programming. Provide all teens with engaging activities, sup- port, guidance and developmentally appropri- id Clubs Reach Teens and Higher-Risk ate knowledge and skills, especially in academic Youth? areas. The organizations involved in this initiative suc- Madison Square's Goals ceeded in drawing teens and higher-risk youth from Madison Square's initiative, Project Link-Up (PLU), their communities, but in two clubs these successes also focused on three central goals: created their own set of challenges. Recruit 50 new teens who are characterized by Successes one or more risk factors at each clubhouse each The Boston clubs added an average of 63 new teens year of the initiative; in Year .1. and 52 new teens in Year 2; the New York clubs reached or exceeded their goal of identifying Integrate, involve and retain these teens; and 50 PLU youth per club each year of the initiative. The clubs served many disadvantaged teens: about 80 Provide teens with engaging activities, support, percent of teens in New York and 60 percent in guidance and developmentally appropriate Boston reported being economically disadvantaged; knowledge and skills, especially in employment- and about 20 percent reported engaging in three or related areas. more risky behaviors in the last year (including 16% of Boston teens and 13% of PLU teens who reported being on probation in the past year). Reports for new Executive Summary members were comparable with those of continuing Successes members, indicating that clubs were already serving A substantial portion of youth attended the clubs reg- many disadvantaged teens. Many new members (par- ularly: one-third of the teens attended once a week ticularly in New York) did, however, differ from other or more, and 60 percent attended once a month or club members in one important way: they may not more. In addition, youth-reported attendance have joined the club on their own, without the addi- increased over the three years of the initiative in New tional staff and resources provided by the initiative. York, providing evidence that the New York clubs were able to involve teens more intensively as the ini- Strategies. Partnerships with agencies, such as proba- tiative progressed. tion in New York and the Police Department and Division of Youth Services in Boston, were quite suc- In addition to regular attendance, retention rates cessful at helping clubs reach higher-risk teens. Many were comparable with or better than typical reten- teens referred by these agencies joined the clubs to tion rates in after-school programs, many of which fulfill a community service requirement, which may primarily serve younger and easier to retain youth have helped clubs retain them long enough to get (Grossman et al., 2002). In New York, a little over them interested and invested in club programs. In half of the teens recruited for PLU were retained as New York, street outreach was very effective at reach- active members for at least one full year. One year ing youth who may not have otherwise considered into the initiative, the Boston clubs had increased the club a place for them. In Boston, opening the their retention rates slightly from 49 to 52 percent, clubs to teens earlier in the day, just as school was so that about half of their preteens were transition- getting out (rather than limiting teen participation ing to the teen centers. to evenings), helped them reach more youth. Strategies. To increase involvement and retention, clubs developed mechanisms to orient new teens to Challenges the clubs and help preteens feel more comfortable Increasing teen membership requires a parallel making the transition from youth to teen program- increase in staffing levels and supports that was not ming. The New York clubs also refined their out- always met. One club in New York and one in Boston reach strategies to focus on teens who would most went well beyond their goals of recruiting 50 new likely benefit by regular participation. youth per year without increasing the number of staff to serve them; both clubs experienced difficulty meet- ing teens' social needs for adult and peer support. Challenges Recruiting a manageable number of teens, given Clubs experienced some difficulty reaching and staffing and space considerations was important for retaining higher-risk youth. After the first year of the providing teens with opportunities to develop positive initiative, New York expanded its risk criteria for PLU relationships at the clubs. In part, these challenges eligibility to include a broader range of youth, in may have resulted from the distinct and more diverse part because they had expended a lot of effort to needs and interests of older youth, compared with retain some higher-risk youth who were not inter- younger youth who might have been easier to accom- ested in the club, taking time away from other teens modate with fewer increases in resources. who were motivated to participate. In Boston, clubs had difficulty reaching, serving and finding jobs for teens involved in a job-training program that tar- Did Clubs Keep Teens involved? geted very specific groups of high-risk youth, such as teen parents and adjudicated youth. Clubs were successful in involving many teen partici- pants, keeping them actively involved for at least a year and attracting them to a variety of activities. However, the clubs had difficulty sustaining the par- ticipation of some higher-risk youth. TigEST COPY HAMA la Increasing Opportunities for Older Youth in After-School Programs iv Did These Initiatives Provide Teens With turnover reported relatively high levels of supports Adult Support? and opportunities, while youth from clubs with exces- sive turnover reported fewer positive benefits from club participation. Staff were very successful in providing teens with high levels of adult support, which practitioners and researchers agree is related to positive outcomes for id Clubs Provide Programming that `11) youth. But the clubs grappled with staff turnover, Met Teens' Heeds and Interests? which had negative implications for teens. The clubs developed successful programs in two Successes areas that addressed teens' interests and needs: aca- About 80 percent of teens reported the availability of demics and job training. Teens also found ample a caring and helpful adult staff member at the club; leadership opportunities at the clubs, an important 77 percent reported that at least one adult knew how factor for youth development. But creating program- they were doing in school; and 80 percent knew at ming that youth found interesting was difficult for least one adult who could help them find a job. staff. Strategies. The clubs developed tracking and case Successes management systems that helped provide adult sup- Youth reported wanting help in academics and job- port to teens. In Boston, the teen education advocate related areas and reported receiving benefits in line provided academic tracking for teens, visiting schools with these focuses. About 70 percent of youth across often and, in some cases, requiring teens to share all clubs said staff members helped them find employ- report cards. Clubs also created forms for tracking ment, and about 75 percent reported that the clubs some youth's participation in club activities. helped them improve their academic performance. New York used a formalized case management Teens also reported getting involved in fairly high approach with guidance specialists identifying PLU numbers of leadership opportunities, which included youth's interests and needs, and documenting how leading a sports team, tutoring, helping set rules and staff linked them with services within and outside of participating in community service. More than 80 the clubs. This approach and added attention pro- percent said they experienced at least one leadership vided by an outreach worker contributed to PLU opportunity at the club in the last year, and about half teens' reports of frequent communication with staff said they experienced five or more opportunities. about personal issues and high levels of confidential- ity in these discussions. The clubs were also successful in running some pro- grams targeting higher-risk youth. Several offered Challenges leadership training and opportunities and provided Case management is expensive and time consum- participants with a stipendimportant motivating ingan entire full-time position was dedicated to factors for these youth. Job-readiness training in both case management in each of the New York clubs. In cities also often targeted higher-risk youth, many of addition, the approach can serve only a limited num- whom were attracted to opportunities that could ber of youth before more staff are needed; guidance help them get a job. specialists in New York became overwhelmed with their growing caseloads in later years of the initiative, Strategies. Teens thought academic benefits resulted leading to a drop in the number of teens reporting from programs, such as tutoring and homework assis- adult support. tance, that were available at the clubs every day and through staff's success in changing their attitude Staff turnover occurred in all but two clubs and had toward school. Teens felt close to the staff and were important ramifications: youth from clubs with no open to accepting academic help from them. Boston clubs also required teens to share their report cards with staff or devote an hour every day to homework; 10