Abstract
A growing body of research is examining the strengths and weaknesses of specific after school programs and their effect on youth outcomes. Few reviews, however, have sought to examine the components of citywide system-building—to understand intentional efforts to develop, support and sustain high quality after school programming across a community. Beginning in the mid-1990s and continuing through the present, private funders, public officials and program practitioners in cities across America have joined together to build systems to support the expansion and improvement of after school programs at the city-level. This paper presents the community context and underlying principles that drove the development of Baltimore’s After-School Strategy; articulates a set of system components derived from this experience and the available literature; and lays out future work to expand high quality after-school opportunities for youth in Baltimore and in other distressed urban environments.
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Acknowledgments
We acknowledge our debt to Robert Halpern whose previous writing on the history, development, challenges and opportunities of the after-school field—and his assessment of the Baltimore Strategy conducted in 2002 and 2003—provide much of the background for this paper. Many colleagues provided thoughtful reviews and comments. Especially, we thank Hathaway Ferebee and Erin Coleman of the Safe and Sound Campaign, Gerry Grimm of the Family League of Baltimore City, Rebkha Atnafou of The After School Institute, and Beth Weitzman of New York University, who served as a particularly careful reader and advisor. Three independent reviewers also helped us to clarify our ideas and strengthen their presentation, and we thank them for this. Martha Holleman’s time on this paper was generously supported by a Distinguished Fellows Program grant from the WT Grant Foundation for which she is profoundly grateful. Finally, in telling Baltimore’s story, we honor and recognize the thousands of city residents who over the last ten years have attended rallies, given testimony and reached out to their elected officials to convince them to expand funding for the basic opportunities all children need and deserve if they are to grow and thrive. The work continues.
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This article was originally written in 2007 and accepted with changes as suggested by peer reviewers for publication in August, 2008.
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Holleman, M.A., Jane Sundius, M. & Bruns, E.J. Building Opportunity: Developing City Systems to Expand and Improve After School Programs. Am J Community Psychol 45, 405–416 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10464-010-9308-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10464-010-9308-y