Abstract

Sandra Naughton's National Service Fellows report, Youth and Communities Helping Each Other: Community-Based Organizations Using Service-Learning as a Strategy During Out-of-School Time, offers community-based organizations ideas, suggestions and resources for improving or initiating programs for youth during out-of-school time. After surveying a diverse pool of community-based programs nationwide, nine practices were found to be a part of successful programs. This effective practice profiles nine programs that demonstrate each of the best practices, and includes lessons learned.

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Issue

According to a National Institute on Out-of-School Time (Center for Research on Women at Wellesley Centers for Women, Wellesley College) 2005 FAQ sheet, lack of adult supervision and participation in self-care for both children and adolescents have been linked to: increased likelihood of accidents, injuries, lower social competence, lower GPA's, lower achievement test scores, and greater likelihood of participation in delinquent or other high-risk activities such as experimentation with alcohol, tobacco, drugs and sex. Teens who are unsupervised during after-school hours are 37 percent more likely to become teen parents.

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Action

Based on the programs analyzed in Sandra Naughton's National Service Fellows Report, Youth and Communities Helping Each Other: Community-Based Organizations Using Service-Learning as a Strategy During Out-of-School Time, community-based organizations use nine practices to guide their efforts to success. These nine practices are outlined as follows, paired with the programs that best exemplifies them:

1. Serving community needs: Heart of OKC Project (Oklahoma City, Oklahoma)

Youth plan and implement activities that build the "9 Key Assets for a Healthy Teen" as identified by youth and adults on task forces and youth focus groups (monthly meetings and surveys). The nine key assets are: aspirations for the future; constructive use of time; respect for culture; skills for meaningful employment; decision-making skills to promote good health; healthy family communication; positive peer role model; positive relationships with non-parent adults; and service to others.

One of the key assets, service to others, caused the project to focus on service-learning as a prevention strategy. Youth work with community leaders to identify the changing needs of the community and design projects and programs that address those needs. In the 23rd Street and Classen Boulevard neighborhood youth:

• Organize cultural events; for example, performed a traditional Vietnamese dance and hosted a question and answer session for faculty in a school district with a significant Vietnamese population.
• Facilitate parent-adolescent communication
• Provide youth leadership and personal enhancement opportunities
• Tutor and mentor younger youth
• Help the elderly
Program Effectiveness
• Program staff and participants identify community needs and possible ways to address needs.
• Address and incorporate the community's attitude toward youth.
• Build on past successes to plan for the future.
Applying Lessons Learned
• Envision the groups to be involved in the project or the program.
• Take into account any clashes, uncomfortable feelings, or cultural conflicts the diverse group might have.
• The group should decide how to identify the needs of the community.
• Compile the needs in a way that fosters action.
• Take action.
• Continually re-assess the needs of the community and adjust actions accordingly.
2. Identifying and fostering intentional learning objectives: Blackfeet Youth Initiative (Browning, Montana)

Blackfeet Youth Initiative (BYI) provides youth with cross-cultural experiences focusing on improving the reservation community through service-learning activities. High school age youth and national service members serve as mentors to help fourth to sixth grade youth plan after-school and summer service-learning activities. Both the after-school and summer programs focus on three major themes: leadership, prevention and culture. Middle school youth identify needs in the community they want to address mentors help them create lesson plans to accomplish these activities.

Example: Out of desire to serve elderly members in the community, youth wrote and produced a puppet show for a senior citizen home.

Through the process of acquiring leadership skills, youth learn how to be part of the community in a positive way. Intentional learning objectives are as follows:

• Intellectual — writing skills
• Social — leadership, public speaking, teamwork
• Citizenship — how to give back to the community
• Personal — anti-drug and alcohol awareness, cultural heritage(Ex: youth learn how their Native American identity and home affects their perspective on society, land use and other cultures.)
Lesson plans include:
• Goal of activity
• Outline of step-by-step procedure
• Example of activity's desired outcome
• Needed supplies
• Reflection or concluding exercise
  
Program Effectiveness
• Counselors and staff are trained to use a tool to identify and foster intentional learning objectives
• Focus on quality interaction for youth, not quantity of youth reached
  
Applying Lessons Learned
• Create a "road map" to help staff and leaders guide youth to identified learning goals.
• Try to balance the emphasis on service and learning, so that each informs and strengthens the other.
• Identify the different types of learning that can occur from the process of planning, doing and reflecting on the service.
• Find a way to document the learning that occurs.
3. Creating Structural Opportunities for Reflection: Youth Service Opportunities Project (New York, New York)

High school and college students work at various social service agency sites dealing with hunger and homelessness, with educational and reflection activities lead by Youth Service Opportunities Project (YSOP) staff throughout the experience. Most activities are one-time intensive overnight work camps with a group of youth from a school or faith-based organization. YSOP also leads several on-going service-learning activities at local high schools, addressing similar issues related to people living in poverty.

Overnight work camps offer an intensive 24-hour experience to help youth learn about poverty issues, serving those in poverty and reflecting on poverty. About thirty youth attend either from Thursday afternoon through Friday or Friday through Saturday. YSOP also facilitates longer work camps, school field trips, and ongoing programs at high schools. All programs share an emphasis on reflection and reflection activities are varied so that people with different interests find something that fit them — writing exercises, large and small group sharing, quiet reflection activity, having a question and answer period with a speaker. The reflection component of the program helps youth contextualize their service experience and explore issues of justice, compassion and political action. The program's approach is to try and get youth to raise questions, not to supply them with an answer. Reflection activities help youth develop their own answers to such questions based on their personal experiences dealing with these issues, and is structured into various points throughout the program. Reflection occurs in a variety of ways:

• Short written responses to questions — Example: Before the service experience, staff ask youth to write how they felt the last time they saw a homeless person; after service, staff ask them to write a response to the same question.
• Guided visualization, impromptu discussion, discussion planned by staff, discussions with service teams, individual quiet reflection on readings by staff.
  
At the conclusion of the service, participants are asked to write a personal service challenge — something they would like to achieve in a month. Challenges are mailed to youth around a month after work camp to remind them of the commitment they made.

Program Effectiveness

• Various types of reflection structured into activities before, during and after service experiences
• Program design suits the needs of those seeking short-term, yet intensive service experiences
• Committed long-term staff who believe in the vision and know the history of the program
  
Applying Lessons Learned
• Engage participants in reflection before, during and after the service.
• Structure reflection to appeal to the different ways people learn.
• Use reflection activities that suit the particular interests of the youth involved.
• Involve youth in the planning and implementation of reflection.
4. Including Youth Voice and Leadership: Youth Making Change (San Francisco, California)

Youth Making Change (Y-MAC) is a leadership council of diverse youth that learn advocacy and teamwork skills through their effort to improve youth opportunities and representation in the community. A group of 15 youth are hired by their peers to work in the program for a minimum of four hours a week, for which they are paid an hourly minimum wage. The youth select their own projects, such as designing a youth center. They then work in teams and meet weekly as a group to check with each other and staff, reflect on the past week's activities and plan for upcoming meetings and activities. Youth lead almost all activities (most program decisions are made with input from or by youth). To achieve their goals, the group emphasizes building on or utilizing partnerships with other organizations, to achieve sustainable and city-wide changes.

Program Effectiveness

• Embracing and wholly supporting youth voice
• Collaborating and building partnerships with other groups is integral in every project
• Paid positions for youth to serve and learn in their communities
  
Applying Lessons Learned
• Invite youth to identify the type of service-learning projects and activities they want to work on.
• Establish systems and procedures with the youth to monitor their progress and keep everyone on task.
• Encourage staff and adult volunteers to focus on facilitating the process, not the outcomes of youth efforts.
• Include youth in every decision about the program.
  
5. Fostering Civic Responsibility: Students of Promise (North Carolina)

School counselors and teachers invite service and leader-oriented youth from high schools to apply to be Students of Promise (SOP) volunteer tutors and mentors. Selected youth are assigned to nearby after-school programs, called Support Our Students (SOP) for academically at-risk middle school students. SOP volunteers serve at the after-school SOP programs at least twice a month. SOP volunteers are not assigned to specific middle school students but can work one-on-one or in groups, helping them with homework, planning service-learning projects and participating in field trips or guest speaker presentations.

The program fosters the ability to care for others and an understanding of an individual's impact on the community through their tutoring and mentoring relationships with younger youth.

One hour of each day of the after-school program focuses on homework help and tutoring, with the remainder used for enrichment and small group activities. During their term of service SOP volunteers also plan and organize three long-term group service-learning projects that they lead SOS students through. The youth research community needs, meet with community groups related to their project and plan the entire effort. Projects in the past have ranged from school beautification to organizing a blood drive. Intergenerational projects have also been developed.

Program Effectiveness

• Foster participants' civic responsibility by providing them a structure for helping others
• Emphasis on recruiting youth who can be involved for more than one year
• Partner with schools
  
Applying Lessons Learned
• Allow for genuine relationships between participants to form.
• Clearly define the responsibility and commitment of youth.
• Allow time for reflection focused on what youth gain from the experience.
  
6. Evaluating the program and activities: Youth Engaged in Service (Oakland, California)

   During the school year, Project YES (Youth Engaged in Service) AmeriCorps members serve in schools with teachers to integrate service-learning into classrooms and lead after-school clubs that focus on service-learning and community service projects. During the summer, AmeriCorps members and program staff lead a six-week summer corps program for middle school youth, using high school youth as assistants. Staff also provide teacher training in service-learning.

   AmeriCorps members and staff work with an outside evaluator who designs tools and instruments for them to administer. The evaluator, who makes recommendations and reports to the programs, analyzes data staff collects, as well as school records. The following tools are used for evaluation:

   For school year activities:

   • Youth pre- and post-survey on belief and service-learning practices
   • Youth pre- and post-survey on actions and attitudes related to civic responsibility
   • Interviews with youth, staff and teachers
   • Grades assigned by teachers for classroom projects
   For summer activities:
   • Pre- and post-test writing sample by youth
   • Staff evaluations of youth at end of program
   • One-on-one conference with staff and youth at end of program
     
   Throughout the year:
   • AmeriCorps member goal attainment scales
   • Project evaluations completed by partnering organizations
     
   The program tries to empower, retain and promote youth through the various leadership positions to create a "cascading leadership model."

   Program Effectiveness

   • Evaluation efforts guide program design and assess impact on youth
   • Promotes service-learning in both in-school and out-of-school activities
     
   Applying Lessons Learned
   • Identify what aspects of the program should be evaluated and for what purpose.
   • Consider who should be involved in the evaluation process, including those whose experiences can be evaluated and those who can influence the design of the evaluation plan.
   • Choose an evaluation plan appropriate to program needs, resources and time constraints.
   • Utilize existing data or evaluation tools when applicable.

7. Fostering Positive Human Relationships: Discovery Leadership Program for Girls and Women (Minneapolis, Minnesota)

The program promotes leadership among girls and women by bringing together girls who may not be identified as leaders and recognized and unrecognized female leaders from the community to engage in leadership development activities and plan a community action. Initiated by a facilitator from the YMCA, the groups of 12 to 15 girls and two to four women meet weekly as a group after school for 12 to 18 weeks to help young girls view themselves as leaders and complete a community action project.

The program defines community action as a process that engages the community in working together to create a sustainable, positive change, rather than a one-time effort to fill a direct community need. Past community action projects have ranged from requesting state legislation to increasing the numbers of jobs for 14-year-olds in a neighborhood to raising money for multicultural books at a local day care for children of teenage mothers. One group planned a march against violence, which has become an annual event.

Program Highlights

• Youth/adult ratio is 15 to 3.
• Youth work in teams and with adults on projects.
• Youth are exposed to community members.
  
Program Effectiveness
• Program focus on the girls' self esteem as a foundation for their ability to create community change
• Girls are empowered to lead with support and encouragement from women volunteers
• Leadership and service ethic is fostered by all involved
  
Applying Lessons Learned
• Keep a low ratio of youths to adults.
• Emphasize mutual respect between program participants.
• Adults learn about the developmental and individual needs of youth participants.
• Adults in the program interact positively among themselves.
  
8. Building Partnerships: Team Oakland (Oakland, California)

High school teens work in teams of eight to ten with an assistant team leader and team leader to develop job, leadership and environmental conservation skills through training and environmental service projects. During the school year, teams meet twice a week after school for workshops on leadership skills, environmental concepts, life and employability skills and other related topics. On Saturdays, the teams meet at community sites for environmental service projects. During the summer, youth serve five days a week for four hours a day with more emphasis on projects than workshops. Youth are paid for participation in all activities. Staff focus on developing a work, as well as a service ethic among the youth. The program enforces strict attendance and performance policies, and emphasizes personal responsibility and choice.

Team Oakland's partnerships with varying groups enrich the youth participant's experience, through both service projects and educational workshops. Projects for neighborhood teams have included creating marionette puppets and an accompanying play for a Chinatown festival, maintaining landscapes at a botanical garden, decorating sidewalk planters with colorful mosaics, planting natives for a creek restoration project and painting murals at schools for neighborhood beautification.

Teams attended classes at the University of California, Berkeley's School of Natural Resources and workshops are lead by various staff members and representatives from other agencies.

Participants, assistant crew leaders, crew leaders, staff, local universities and colleges, city department of parks and recreation, community garden groups, youth employment agencies, merchant associations, neighborhood councils, faith-based groups and other groups collaborate in service.

Program Effectiveness

• A wide variety of community partnerships helps the program meet the community's service and youth's educational needs
• Stable funding source for program allows staff to focus energy on programmatic improvements
• Using peers as leaders in the program structure
  
Applying Lessons Learned
• Approach potential partners with the ways their goals intersect with yours.
• Seek potential partners that can bring various resources to the program.
• Partnerships can vary in degree of commitment and involvement.
• Clearly articulate the motivation and goals of all partners.
  
9. Providing accessible places and times for activities: Treehouse Children's Museum Learn and Serve Program (Ogden, Utah)

High school and middle school youth volunteer to lead and assist younger youth and their families in various activities geared toward reading and language readiness at the museum. High school youth serve in shifts after school and on weekends and attend monthly volunteer meetings for training and reflection activities. Middle school youth participate in the summer Special Participating Youth (SPY) program doing similar types of activities with museum visitors.

Youth volunteers help develop and lead activities that teach the alphabet, the concept of reading left to right, the difference between vowels and consonants, and other reading skills. They also read aloud to other groups of children and parents, create crafts related to reading for the museum gift shop, and lead parent-child reading events. Youth facilitate art, drama and storytelling activities focused on making children's literature and reading fun.

Staff work with the Youth Advisory Council, composed of 12 youth volunteers, to plan how youth volunteers can support various exhibits and events at the museum. The youth council meets every first Saturday to brainstorm ideas for new projects, exhibits, volunteer incentives and social activities. The council also works with staff to plan reflection activities for specific events or during monthly volunteer meetings.

Program Highlights

• Facilities: Four mall storefronts serve as a children's museum totaling about 17,000 square feet
• Schedule: Youth can volunteer for any available shift while the museum is open; middle school youth volunteers serve four hours per week in the summer
• Youth time commitment: No set amount, although youth are encouraged to participate for a goal of at least 50 hours
  
Program Effectiveness
• Engaging and stimulating environment for youth at an accessible location
• Youth create their own schedule
  
Applying Lessons Learned
• Involve youth in designing or decorating the program environment.
• Try to reflect youths' interests and needs in the physical environment.
• Keep youths' various learning, communication and work styles in mind when arranging meeting, recreation or work space.
• Check program facilities for safety and adequate heating.

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Context

Programs studied in the research were at least one year old; offered service-learning in out-of-school time to youth and had community-based organizations as their fiscal or administrative sponsor.In all nine programs, service-learning philosophy guides program design, staff management, daily implementation and most program activities (an ongoing, integrated part of the program, rather than a practice outside and in addition to the program).

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Citation

Naughton, Sandra. Youth and Communities Helping Each Other: Community-Based Organizations Using Service-Learning as a Strategy During Out-of-School Time. Washington, D.C.: The Corporation for National and Community Service, National Service Fellow Program, July 2000.

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Outcome

Given the successes of the programs included in the study, more community-based organizations should consider using service-learning as a strategy during out-of-school time. By creating such programs and activities, communities and youth will benefit. The path for more community-based organizations to engage youth and communities through this strategy has already been charted. Organizations can apply the lessons learned and successful practices accumulated by the programs profiled in this study to guide their own local efforts.

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Evidence

For the purposes of this National Service Fellows Study, each program was considered successful in the terms defined and experienced by those involved with the program.

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Posted On

June 9, 2005

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For More Information

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Resources

From The Resource Center library:

Youth and Communities Helping Each Other: Community-Based Organizations Using Service-Learning as a Strategy During Out-of-School Time

Library item number: R1803

Source Documents

Youth and Communities Helping Each Other

Related Practices

• Assisting underperforming students with after-school service-learning

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Related sites

National Institute on Out-of-School Time

National Service Learning Clearinghouse

Learn and Serve America

Topic Areas

• At-risk youth
• Community building
• Out-of-school time
• Civic engagement
• Reflection
• Service-learning
• Community partnerships
• Partnerships
• Program evaluation
• Learn and Serve America
• Community-Based Organizations
• Schools
• Youth
• Learn & Serve
• NSLC
• Education

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