Report/Paper

Whether you work on community collaborations, youth programs or youth policies, your efforts are represented in the Forum for Youth Investment's 2012 Annual Report.

While an increasing number of afterschool providers have made quality improvement a priority, addressing quality in a systemic way is complicated: It requires research, planning, building consensus, developing resources, managing new processes and sometimes redefining old relationships.

The expansion of the Common Core State Standards in education opens new doors for out-of-school time (OST) providers to align their work with schools.

Anyone working to increase postsecondary success knows that aligning the work of various stakeholders and helping sectors work together is essential – and a new issue brief shows how leaders are making that happen on both the community and state levels.

This study, Continuous Quality Improvement in Afterschool Settings: Impact Findings from the Youth Program Quality Intervention, shows how a cycle of assessing staff practices, planning based on the assessment and targeted training improves the quality of services delivered to young people.

In the face of budget cuts that threaten to erode crucial supports for children and youth, some state agencies have found a promising mechanism for increasing efficiency while maintaining or even improving supports for young people: Children’s Cabinets.

Leaders across the country agree that America must have more citizens with a postsecondary credential to be successful in the 21st century. Policymakers in all 50 states are realizing that, in order to maintain economic vitality their state’s policies must support higher education access and success.

To have a collective impact on child and youth outcomes, leaders must develop and implement a broad, long-term child and youth strategy, and be accountable for results. This can be a challenge. Policies often require the creation of strategic plans that are organized around a single, narrow topic.