National Center on Afterschool and Summer Enrichment Resource Library

This 2023 issue of the Afterschool Matters journal is focused on the OST workforce, specifically, findings from interviews that were part of the Power of Us Workforce Survey. This survey was part of a research study designed to gather data about the experiences of youth-serving workers in a wide range of fields, with the goal of helping communities better understand the youth-serving workforce and ways to help it thrive. The journal explores the insights of professionals in the youth fields on critical issues: community institutions, summer, entry points and recruitment, compensation, career pathways, and recommendations. This resource supports equity.

Home-based Child Care Networks are seen as a promising strategy for supporting regulated family child care and legally-exempt family, friend, and neighbor caregivers. Home Grown and Erikson Institute created this evidence-based framework with 11 benchmarks to provide guidance to high-quality networks. BUILD provided a related webinar on Embedding Wellness in Home-based Child Care Systems through Strengthening Home-based Child Care Networks.  

Child care programs are an essential component of strong communities, yet in rural America families are challenged in being able to access and afford care. The Bipartisan Policy Center worked with Save the Children to create this framework to explore the economic impact of child care gaps and provide innovative strategies and policy recommendations. There is a related webinar on How Affordable Child Care in Rural Areas Can Unlock Economic Potential.   This resource supports equity.

The Center for American Progress explores the policies that schools can develop to support student mental health. The strategies include creating a statewide mental health task force, organizing interagency coordination, expanding Medicaid coverage of school-based mental health, increasing access to school-based mental health, and investing in school climate through trauma-informed care and building mental health into the curriculum. This is relevant for out-of-school programs as programs often tap into school-based mental health services. This resource supports resiliency.

This webinar focuses on the uniqueness and significance of afterschool and summer programs in rural communities. It examines challenges faced by rural afterschool programs, strategies for tailoring afterschool programs to rural contexts, the role of advocacy in supporting these programs, and resources for mobilizing rural afterschool programs.

This webinar from Grantmakers for Education explores ways that two communities are building the capacity of nonprofits to work on providing quality OST jobs that are well compensated. The first example is the Walter and Elise Haas Fund's Endeavor Fund that is moving from contributions to commitment. This trust-based philanthropy effort is providing 7 grants to 7 organizations over 7 years to build nonprofit capacity. The second example is Hub One in Kalamazoo, MI, where 4 nonprofits joined forces to find solutions for ongoing challenges like scarcity, funding, compensation, and staff turnover.  

As states seek to invest in cost modeling tools, providers and funders must think strategically about how the tools can best be used. This issue brief explores how tools can answer some of the most pressing questions facing the early childhood field such as workforce compensation, increasing child care supply, and determining subsidy rates that meet the true cost of care. The brief includes examples from NM, DC, TX, NYC, and MA.   

The nation's success in meeting the need for quality child care depends on our ability to recruit and retain a competent workforce and registered apprenticeships is one innovative model explored in this issue brief. There are sections on the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act; registered apprenticeships and growth and learning; and state and local examples including WV, AL, AR, CO, FL, KY, MD, OK, PA, RI, TX, and WI. A related webinar, Apprenticeships: A Growing Strategy for the Child Care Workforce, includes examples from YMCA of the East Bay and Rhode Island model for family child care.

This issue brief from the Children's Equity Project examines data from the Yale CARES survey of center-based, home-based, and informal child care providers, including 82,000 in 2020 and 50,000 in 2021. The survey found that 45% of providers reported depression, 27% reported stress, and 60% of providers reported increases in children's externalizing and internalizing behaviors. This resource supports equity. This resource supports resiliency.

Child care providers are often at the forefront of offering social-emotional learning and universal mental health support for school-age children. This tip sheet is a supplemental resource for direct service providers and offers simple strategies to successfully engage families, address youth development, and enhance staff progress while centering SEL and mental health services. For more information on targeted resources to elevate system and program initiatives, access the NCASE Social-Emotional Learning and Mental Health Toolkit: Support for Systems and Programs Toolkit.