The
above statements are by members of a Hmong refugee family whose
son attended the Wilder Foundation’s “Hmoob Koom Siab/Hmong
Working Together” after-school program in St. Paul, Minnesota.
The positive changes expressed by this family demonstrate some of
the benefits that high quality after-school programming can have
for refugee youth and their families.
This month’s Spotlight provides a brief overview of after-school
and other Out-of-School Time (OST) programs and examines these in
light of the special strengths and needs of refugee families. We
identify challenges and recommendations for establishing and running
a successful OST program and list resources for further reading.
This month’s Special Feature column provides examples of promising
practices. It highlights two after-school programs serving refugee
families: the Wilder Foundation’s “Hmoob
Koom Siab/Hmong Working Together” program and the International
Rescue Committee’s “Students
Plus” program in San Diego, California.
Out-of-School Time (OST) Programs
The OST field - including
after-school, summer, and other youth programs - has grown
tremendously over the past decade. Such programs are not new; as
early as the 1800s, after-school services were provided for
immigrant children in settlement houses to assist with assimilation
and provide care and supervision while their parents were at
work. [2]
With the desire for after-school care increasing in recent years due
to a number of social and economic changes, a recent review of these
services noted that:
Afterschool programs are increasingly viewed as one viable way of
bridging the gap between the end of the school day and the time
parents get home from work. They have the potential to provide a
safe, supervised place for children and youth to participate in
constructive activities and form positive relationships with peers
and adults. Such programs may also supplement what children and
youth learn during the regular school day and expose students to a
wide array of enrichment opportunities that promote cognitive,
social, emotional, physical, and moral growth and development.
[3]
The types of activities offered by Out-of-School Time programs vary
considerably as, not surprisingly, do the quality of these services.
As the OST field grows, there is increasing emphasis on developing
evidence-based practice models and standards of practice. The
Charles Stewart Mott Foundation commissioned a committee to identify
“…operational conditions that research and practice have found to be
essential to sustain high-quality after-school programs.” These
include:
- Effective partnerships to promote learning and community
engagement
- Strong program management including adequate compensation of
qualified staff
- Qualified after-school staff and volunteers with regular
opportunities for professional development and career advancement
- Enriching learning opportunities that complement school-day
learning, utilize project-based learning, and explore new skills and
knowledge
- Intentional linkages between school-day and after-school staff
including coordinating and maximizing use of resources and
facilities
- Appropriate attention to safety, health, and nutrition issues
- Strong family involvement in participants’ learning and
development
- Adequate and sustainable funding
- Evaluation for continuous improvement and assessing program
effectiveness [4]
The
National Afterschool Association (NAA)
has published organizational and program standards and developed an
accreditation system for after-school programs. Other initiatives,
like The After-School Institute
in Baltimore, MD, have further developed these standards for their
own use into a
manual.
Refugee
Youth, Children, and Families
Refugee families can
benefit from OST programs in the same ways as US-born families, but
they also have unique strengths and needs that must be addressed for
these programs to be effective. After-school programs can assist
refugee families in the following ways:
- Child Care: Both
parents in refugee families are encouraged to seek employment
soon after arrival, and parents often work long hours to make
ends meet to provide for their family and reestablish themselves
in this new country. In addition, some refugee groups have higher
numbers of single parents for whom child care remains a pressing
concern (for example, see BRYCS’
report on Liberian refugees). After-school programs can
provide at least some supervised child care.
- Academic Assistance:
Formal education may have been interrupted or not widely available
for refugee children due to the effects of war and living in
refugee camps. Most refugees attend English as a Second Language
(ESL) classes after arrival, and some recent groups of refugees
have had relatively low rates of literacy. Extra assistance
with school work can tap into the high value most refugees place
on education and their strong drive to succeed, and increase
their chances of success in school.
- Positive Youth Development:
- Importance of strong relationships with family and community - One
of the most critical issues for refugee families is the
“acculturation gap” that inevitably develops when children adapt
more quickly than their parents to this new culture. This gap can be
exacerbated when parents work long hours in order to provide their
children with opportunities, and when the usual parent-child role is
reversed by, for example, children acting as interpreters for their parents. Children who maintain strong connections to their
family and original culture, but also become competent in U.S.
culture, tend to be most successful. Programs that
encourage and support children’s relationships with their parents,
and their parents’ relationship with the schools, can make a
positive difference.
- Opportunities for connecting with U.S.-born youth and adults in a
supportive atmosphere – It can take time for refugee children to
feel at ease with other youth at school and, unfortunately, refugee
children are sometimes teased or bullied for being different.
Programs that foster relationships with other youth and
adults can provide refugee children and youth with experiences that
support their positive development.
Programs can also provide an opportunity for an important
information exchange to occur. They can provide information to the
refugee youth on learning and navigating U.S. culture - from
accessing school resources to applying to college. Refugee youth can
also provide U.S. born participants first-hand information on
countries, cultures and international events that they may only read
about.
Challenges to Program
Implementation and Longevity
There are very real and
practical logistical challenges to running a successful
out-of-school time program, including the following.
Planning: Many agencies do not plan sufficiently before starting a
program. It is important to conduct a needs assessment, build
support within the community, and use a
logic model to think through
the different program components and strategies.
Staff: Programs
may have high staff turnover rates due to dissatisfaction with job status
and low potential for career advancement.
Funding: Sources of funding for after-school programs often do not
provide sufficient support for staff or for stability over the long
term.
Participation: Programs must engage participants, meet their needs
and be fun. Older youth, especially, are less likely to continue to
attend programs that do not engage them.
Access: Difficulty accessing program services due to location, lack
of transportation, or cost also affect participation. Basing
programs at schools can increase access and decrease cost, encourage
refugee engagement with schools, and strengthen communication
between day school personnel and after-school staff. However,
refugees may feel more comfortable at a local ethnic community based
organization (ECBO). Some programs have resolved this by the ECBO
providing the services at the school.
Evaluation: Programs
often do not have the in-house expertise to implement an outcome
evaluation or the funding to pay for an external evaluation. Evaluation
is important for continuous program improvement, measuring success,
and securing funding.
Recommendations
Program Planning:
- Conduct a needs and resources assessment. Involve potential
participants, their families, and the community in the project from
the very beginning as well as throughout all project phases.
- Build partnerships
with other groups doing similar work in order to increase resources
and coordination and decrease competition and duplication
Resources:
Programming:
- Use an evidence-based
curriculum that allows for sufficient adaptation to participants’
culture:
- An intervention with a proven track record may be more
likely to lead to positive outcomes.
- Adaptation of parts of the intervention to the participants’
culture can lead to more knowledge about what works and with whom.
- Using documented practices on which there are already data, and
continuing to evaluate the practices, continues to advance the field
of OST, particularly as it relates to the special needs of refugee
youth and their families.
- Focus on family- and community-strengthening approaches, which
tend to be especially appropriate for refugee populations.
- Include strategies for strengthening involvement of refugee
parents with the schools, and increasing understanding and support
of school personnel concerning refugees.
- Review the National Afterschool Association’s (NAA) Organizational
and Program Standards.
Resources:
Staffing:
- Hire refugee community
members and support their professional development and licensure
in the social service, mental health, or legal professions.
This practice:
- Increases agency eligibility for additional funding sources (such
as Medicaid and private health insurance plans).
- Provides the agency with true “culture brokers” better equipped to
mediate between the two cultures.
- Demonstrates the agency’s commitment to supporting community
members in their professional development, and consequently, the
development of the community as a whole.
- Ensure staff are adequately trained and sufficiently compensated.
Resources:
Funding:
There are a number of potential funding sources available for
OST programs. As with all programs, it is important to diversify
funding to ensure long-term financial stability.
- Government sources:
- Private foundations:
- Corporations
- Individual donors
Resources:
-
Afterschool.gov - connects you to
federal resources that support children and youth during
out-of-school hours, including a database of over 100 federal grant
and loan programs.
-
The Finance Project
- provides technical
assistance resources on financing and sustaining Out-of-School Time
and community school initiatives.
-
TASC After-School Tool Box: After-School Funding Sources
- provides the youth services community with public and private
funding information, including ongoing funding sources, as well as
time sensitive RFPs.
Evaluation:
- To minimize cost and maximize expertise, engage researchers
or graduate students at a local university to conduct the evaluation
as part of their own research.
- Conduct regular process evaluations (progress according to
your program plan) and outcome evaluations (changes in participants
that result from your intervention). Evaluations are expected
by funders, provide information for continuous program improvement,
and provide accountability to participants, their families,
and the community.
- Use evaluation to identify “promising practices”,
or strategies that can be demonstrated to be effective in your
after-school program, especially practices that work with refugee
youth and families and that can be replicated by others.
Resources:
-
The Out-of-School Time Learning and Development Project, Harvard
Family Research Project (HFRP) - Works in “partnership with other
organizations to add value to the out-of-school time (OST) field by
promoting strategic use of information to improve quality,
accessibility, and sustainability of OST programs across the nation.
Our strategy is tailored to support knowledge development,
evaluation, and learning in out-of-school time.”
-
Afterschool.org/Promising Practices in the Afterschool System -
“The Promising Practices in Afterschool (or "PPAS") System is an
effort to find and share things that are working in afterschool
programs. The PPAS website is for afterschool program directors who
want to improve the quality of their programs. All sorts of other
people will find it useful, too--people like program staff,
volunteers, parents, community members, policymakers, funders,
researchers, and anyone else who cares about children and youth.”
This is a comprehensive Web site listing resources, activities,
research and publications, and legislation updates.
See BRYCS’ Special Feature
column for descriptions of two after-school programs that
demonstrate many of these recommendations.
Additional Resources
to Learn More
The
National Institute on Out-of-School Time (NIOST) - “The
National Institute on Out-of-School Time (NIOST) believes that
out-of-school experiences are essential to the healthy development
of children and youth, who then can become effective and capable
members of society. Our work bridges the worlds of research and
practice. NIOST has compiled a list of state and regional organizations
and resources, which can be found on their LINKS page.”
A
Resource Guide to Planning and Operating After-School Programs
– “Now in its second edition, this resource guide
[by the Southwest Educational Development Laboratory] describes
readily available and inexpensive resources that support after-school
programs. Topics include management, communication, programming,
community building and collaboration, and developing connections
between K-12 educational and after-school programs.”
Our
Roots, Our Future: Affirming Culture and Language in After School
and Youth Programs – Contains “promising practices
along with an exclusive set of practical tools and activities
to support program reflection and development. Included are the
moving voices of youth and an informative framework speaking to
the importance of culture and language in the lives of young people.
Find out about diversity trends in the field by reading the results
of California Tomorrow’s national survey of after school
programs. Learn effective strategies for working with English
Language Learners, and expand your capacity to support youth of
color and young people of all cultures.”
This month's featured
search in the BRYCS clearinghouse will lead you to the above
resources and more related to the topic of
out-of-school programs for refugee children and youth.
|
SPOTLIGHT
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