Events Highlight Professional Development and Program Quality

A working, half-day conference and an informational luncheon, respectively, helped local afterschool professionals benefit from a series of workshops as stepping stones to elevated professional development, while community and education leaders learned about the pedigree of Rhode Island’s quality improvement system compared to national benchmarks.

On March 4, the Afterschool Mini-Conference kicked off a comprehensive morning of workshops. The event, co-sponsored by the Providence After School Alliance, the RI Department of Education’s 21^st Century Community Learning Center Initiative, and RIASPA, was held in the Feinstein Institute at Providence College.

Following greetings from PASA Executive Director Hillary Salmons that focused on championing the youth agenda, Mo Barbosa of Health Resources in Action led the 125 conference participants in spirited ice-breaking exercises. Groups of providers shared some light-hearted information when asked what they would do once the temperature reaches 80 degrees outside. Answers ranged from donning flip flops to playing tennis. . But the answers to a follow-up question – Why did you choose to work with children and youth? – gave a truer indication of the attendees’ passion and purpose. One group animatedly discussed giving children new tools through which to learn and grow; educating and involving youth in civic and community issues to find their voice; and enticing youths’ creativity through art, music and theater.

Armed with enthusiasm and coffee, participants broke into seven workshops, investigating and discussing pertinent topics geared for elementary, middle, and high school issues.

The three-hour session on Youth Empowerment: Engaging and Motivating Youth looked at empowering youth in and out of structured programs, how professionals motivate youth to support their own empowerment, as well as how to handle the role of adult interaction to encourage youth participation rather than suppress it. This group also delved into the design of activities shaped to spark leadership opportunities for youth.

Staff Development and Supervision, another three-hour workshop, addressed bridging the communication gap between leadership and staff by interactively exploring communication styles for the workplace. The advanced-level workshop, tailored for directors, site coordinators and supervisors, shared team-building strategies geared to promote staff input and feedback while building self-esteem.

Five 90-minute workshops rounded out the conference agenda.

Among them, Building Healthy and Respectful Relationships among Youth presented definitions of healthy and unhealthy relationships and how to support youth in developing good boundaries, particularly relating to sexuality for adolescents.

Engaging Parents as Partners in Your Afterschool Community probed the essential partnership required between practitioners  and children’s parents and guardians. The group tackled strategies to engage parents and then how to collaboratively develop effective out-of-school programs, based on planning and implementation.

Attendees in Strategies to Enhance Student Voice and Participation in the Classroom discussed and practiced strategies to engage students at a higher level in their programs. The presenter addressed ways to remove barriers so that including students’ voice and choice are encouraged. .

For professionals working in culturally diverse settings, Youth Engagement across Cultures introduced training methods, which lead to more effective cross-cultural communication and culturally sensitive approaches to conflict resolution.

Furthermore, Positive Group Management: Working with Behavioral Concerns centered on exploring the definition of behavior and offered useful strategies to help reframe negative behavior. Participants shared experiential successes and learned new tips and techniques.

The day might not have been hot enough for flip flops, but post-conference evaluation forms indicated that attendees viewed the workshops as hot topics in the afterschool field, and that they left more informed and enriched.

By comparison, “Using Data to Improve Practice: Lessons Learned from the Rhode Island Expanded Learning Community” was a February luncheon during which quality assessment of programs became the hot topic for some 50 attendees.

The event, co-sponsored by PASA, RIASPA, The Rhode Island Foundation, and Brown University, brought to Providence highly regarded Dr. Charles Smith, Executive Director of the Weikart Center for Youth Program Quality in Michigan.

Following a welcome from Neil Steinberg, President and CEO of The Rhode Island Foundation, and an introduction to quality improvement in Rhode Island by PASA Executive Director Hillary Salmons, Dr. Smith delivered his presentation, Overview of Youth Program Quality Intervention Study and National Perspective on Quality Improvement Systems.

Essentially, Dr. Smith’s presentation was a testimonial validation of the Rhode Island Program Quality Assessment Tool (RIPQA), created four years ago and now utilized statewide by more than 100 local, youth-serving organizations to measure and improve youth programming. Surprisingly, Dr. Smith’s observations and findings reveal that, much more than adult/youth  or the education levels of the practitioners, it is quality improvement processes - such as RIPQA - that result in continuous and dramatic results for making afterschool programs better for children and youth .

The RIPQA process, the formation of which was led by PASA with input from RIASPA and other community partners measures four categories: safe environment, supportive environment, interaction, and engagement. The forms that are used for specific program assessments, when viewed collectively, merge the best of national standards (High/Scope’s Youth Program Quality Assessment) with those standards unique to Rhode Island, tailoring RIPQA to local efforts and considerations within an overarching, national perspective.

According to Elizabeth Devaney, PASA Deputy Director, results from the implementation of RIPQA speak for themselves – and convincingly. Rhode Island programs excel beyond the national level in three of the four measured areas (supportive environment, interaction, and engagement) while equaling the national average in the other, safe environment.

The body of evidence clearly shows that RIPQA works.

Brown University’s Dr. Kenneth Wong encouraged the audience, comprised of State Representatives Grace Diaz and Frank Ferri along with State Senator Frank DeVall, superintendents, key school administrators, members of the Board of Regents, funders, higher education representatives, and afterschool program directors. He stressed the need for Rhode Island to diligently, continuously apply and interpret RIPQA while also concentrating on increased alignment between afterschool and summer programs with school-day curriculum.

RIASPA Executive Director Sarah Cahill closed the program, expressing her vision of continually improved expanded learning opportunities and enhanced professional development through the use of tools such as RIPQA, which point to the best practices for how, when, and where children and youth learn.

Site Visits Paint Vivid Pictures for Legislators

From an early age we are taught that a picture is worth a thousand words. At RIASPA, one of our chief goals is to promote high-quality afterschool and summer programs to policymakers. We spend a great deal of time at the State House explaining the importance of afterschool and summer learning to legislators, and describing the high-quality programs that exist throughout our state. While these meetings are helpful, it is difficult to fully describe the impact that high-quality afterschool and summer programs have in the lives of Rhode Island’s children and youth. 

How, then, to connect legislators to programs in action? RIASPA’s solution was to offer legislators a picture of afterschool programs by inviting them to site visits in their districts. Since November, RIASPA has conducted these monthly site visits in Cranston West Warwick, and Providence. The visits give legislators the opportunity to see programming for themselves, and to observe the benefits of community partnerships that high-quality programs typically foster. 

Each visit includes an opportunity for legislators to interact with students, usually during snack time. Following snack, legislators tour several program offerings and observe the students and programming in action. At the Cranston site visit in November, Representatives Charlene Lima and Robert Jacquard were able to observe the “Reading with Henry” program as well as a program run by Traveling Theatre. Each of these program offerings allowed legislators to observe the youth development principles employed that make afterschool and summer programming so important to the development of children and youth. Following the program tour, legislators sat down for a conversation with parents, who explained why afterschool programming is so important to their family and what cuts in afterschool realistically mean for them. These snapshots of programming are invaluable, and last far longer in the legislators’ minds than a meeting conducted in the State House.

“Middle school students often feel forgotten or unimportant, so to have a 'fancy person' come talk to them, listen to them, and go back and advocate for them, means a lot,” said Aimee Falso, Director of the Deering Middle School 21^st Century Community Learning Center Program. “There are many extraordinary moments that occur everyday after school, and we were honored to have Representative Patricia Serpa spend time with us to see that.”

Legislators have also found these site visits to be useful. Representative Edith Ajello felt her tour of the AfterZone at Roger Williams Middle School in Providence helped her to understand how engaging experiential, hands-on learning can be for students. She was also surprised at how important the programs were to parents, who did not have to worry about whether or not their children were safe.

RIASPA will continue legislative site visits throughout the 2010 session, targeting one city or town each month. (Future site visits are planned in Pawtucket and Newport.) RIASPA’s goal is to tour one site in all 39 of Rhode Island’s cities and towns. If you would like to host a site visit, please contact Adam Greenman at adam.greenman@afterschoolri.org.

New Urban Arts Wins Prestigious National Award!

On November 4, at a White House ceremony, First Lady Michelle Obama presented the Coming Up Taller award to New Urban Arts. A project of the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities (PCAH), the Coming Up Taller award is the nation's highest honor for the field of out-of-school time arts and humanities programs. Only 15 programs from across the nation are named winners annually. New Urban Arts is a nationally recognized interdisciplinary arts studio for high school students and emerging artists in Providence, Rhode Island whose mission is to build a vital community that empowers young people to develop a creative practice they can sustain throughout their lives. They provide studio, exhibition space, and mentoring for young artists who explore the visual, performing, and literary arts through yearlong free out-of-school programs. Founded in 1997, New Urban Arts serves 150 high school students in Providence’s public high schools and 20 artists each year. In addition to this recent honor, they have been named one of fifty premiere arts and youth development programs in the country for five years. Congratulations to New Urban Arts!

RIASPA and PASA host December 8 event at Save the Bay highlighting afterschool professional development system components

On December 8, over 35 afterschool professionals and advocates assembled at Save the Bay to enjoy a joint presentation by RIASPA and PASA entitled Rhode Island's Professional Development and Capacity-Building System for the Afterschool and Summer Learning Field.

During the presentation, Sarah Cahill, Executive Director of RIASPA, provided a framework regarding Rhode Island’s progress in building the multiple components of a professional development system for the field. Participants heard about how our state is a leader nationally in professionalizing the field through its creation of core competencies, quality standards and connected assessment system, and a quality rating and improvement system (BrightStars). However, there still are components that require creation in order to be a true professional development system.

To illustrate this point, Sarah offered an overview of a report commissioned by RIASPA and PASA entitled Building a Professional Development System for Rhode Island Afterschool and Summer Learning Programs. The report’s intent was to highlight the current components of a professional development system and where gaps exist; offer a glimpse into higher education opportunities for afterschool and summer practitioners; and discuss the importance of scholarships and financial support for practitioners in relation to professional development and certificate-based or degree-bearing programs.

RIASPA’s Manager of Quality Initiatives, Joseph Morra, further delved into the report, mentioning how a program landscape and professional development survey administered to the field this past March supported the findings of the report. As such, a fair amount of data from this survey was infused into the report, offering insight into the field’s professional development desires, workforce composition, and responses about what resources would improve the field as a whole.  

Elizabeth Devaney, PASA’s Deputy Director, then presented data from years one and two of the Rhode Island Program Quality Assessment (RIPQA) tool, demonstrating how Rhode Island stacked up against the nation in four key areas of quality: safe environment, supportive environment, interactions, and engagement. Overall, our state scored slightly higher than the national reference sample in all four areas. The RIPQA tool is both comprehensive but user-friendly, and the substantial support provided by quality advisors undoubtedly helped the programs using the tool to achieve scores demonstrating high-quality practice in action.

Offering a national context for field quality and capacity building was special guest Nicole Yohalem, Director of Special Projects for The Forum for Youth Investment. During her presentation, Nicole offered research about increased awareness of the afterschool and summer workforce as well as emerging evidence that professional development does improve youth outcomes and staff performance. She additionally commended Rhode Island for its current systems building and strong national showing with our RIPQA data. She also encouraged us to “insulate” the education pipeline; in other words, be intentional in connecting to the early childhood field on one end, but also to post-secondary on the other end in order to create as seamless a system as possible for children and youth to be successful in work and life.