More than two decades ago, Community Programs to Promote Youth Development (colloquially known as the Blue Book) laid the research foundation for much of the training, technical assistance, and quality measurement that youth programs rely on today. In 2025, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine released its long-awaited update: The Future of Youth Development: Building Systems and Strengthening Programs, a consensus study commissioned by The Wallace Foundation, that reviews what we now know about out-of-school time programs serving young people. 

In a recent webinar, our partners at the Afterschool Alliance and the American Institutes for Research (AIR) connected the report’s findings on capacity building to the policy realities facing the 21st Century Community Learning Centers (21st CCLC) program, the principal federal funding stream for afterschool and summer learning. Deb Moroney of AIR, who chaired the study committee, and Jen Rinehart of the Afterschool Alliance, who served on it, walked us through the latest research, followed by a roundtable conversion moderated by the Forum for Youth Investment’s Sarah Phillips, between the Afterschool Alliance’s Erik Peterson and the Forum’s Patrick Freeland and Venalin Aguilar about the on-the-ground realities in today’s policy environment. 

Quality matters, and it runs on invisible infrastructure 

Moroney told attendees that core features of positive developmental settings identified in the original Blue Book still hold true, and the new volume adds practice-driven elements now supported by the evidence base, including developmental relationships and culturally sustaining practices. Young people who spoke to the committee described what those features feel like from the inside. One called their program a second home: “They always encourage me to go anywhere I want, do anything I want, and just be who I am.” 

The committee’s conclusion is that quality matters, but the field needs to know more about what quality looks like, for which young people, under what conditions. To get there requires that funders invest in quality improvement, which Moroney described as “an invisible infrastructure that needs to be made visible and a part of everyday funding.” That infrastructure includes the youth development workforce, along with the national, state, and local intermediaries that coordinate quality and capacity building across programs. Rinehart followed by noting that current funding is unfortunately often fragmented. She pointed to 21st CCLC as the field’s best example of the long-term, flexible funding the report recommends — funding that enables programs to hire core staff and build stable operations. 

Capacity building in practice 

Capacity building means “building people’s knowledge, skills, and practices while simultaneously creating the infrastructure that supports high-quality learning experiences,” said Freeland. He explained that the Forum builds capacity within 21st CCLC systems through professional learning, coaching, quality assessment, improvement planning, and leadership development, helping program teams utilize quality data to strengthen the experiences they create for young people.  

Aguilar described what that looks like in practice, stating: “We don’t want to approach quality as one more thing that staff have to add to an already full plate.” She shared the example of a 21st CCLC network that set out to build its program directors’ ownership of quality by investing in leadership training, not just adding more tasks to their to-do lists. Through a cohort and train-the-trainer model, those directors went on to lead sessions at their state convenings and become content experts for programs across their state. “The impact isn’t just someone attending one of our trainings or completing a quality improvement plan,” she said. “It’s that we’re building confidence and leadership within networks to carry that work forward.” 

Freeland sees the shift happen when continuous quality improvement stops feeling like compliance. People stop treating it as something they have to do, he said, and start treating it as something they get to do. 

A policy environment to watch 

Peterson reminded attendees that 21st CCLC is the only federal funding stream that includes dedicated funds to support capacity building and quality in afterschool and summer learning. He believes it is due to this commitment to capacity building and quality that, despite the pandemic, youth outcomes have remained consistently strong since the last reauthorization in 2015. 

However, states are looking for more flexibility, and as a result, the current administration is offering waivers to state education agencies to be able to have additional flexibility with their federal education funds beyond the 21st CCLCs.  

Six states have now received federal flexibility waivers that allow those state activities funds to be redirected. While flexibility is not inherently bad, there is a risk that this will leave quality and capacity building underfunded. To bridge the funding gap, states need to look at other funding options to continue quality improvement and capacity building. 

We’ve also seen the programs themselves at risk. The president’s proposed FY26 and FY27 budgets consolidated and eliminated 21st CCLC funding. Although Congress rejected that proposal and kept this funding stream intact, the level funding still amounted to a real-world cut due to inflation. Last July, we also saw 21st CCLC allocations withheld for 18 days alongside five other federal education funding streams, pending a review at the Office of Management and Budget. This left states scrambling to figure out how to keep these programs open, while advocates and bipartisan champions in Congress voiced their support to get the funds released. 

Through all the fights to protect this critical funding, Peterson said the support from communities and members of Congress have shown “just how important and essential these programs are. They’re not a nice-to-have. They’re not an extra.” 

What you can do 

Peterson encouraged practitioners to make policymakers aware of the work they do and it’s impact, whether that happens at a school board meeting, a farmer’s market table, or in the grocery store line. To engage policymakers, he highlighted the importance of site visits – inviting elected officials to sit in the tiny desks, eat the snack, and talk with students and families to hear the impact of this work.  

Phillips offered her own proof from outside Boston, where bringing a mayoral candidate to a local intermediary’s 25th anniversary celebration was enough to get him committed to revitalizing the city’s out-of-school time ecosystem when he was later elected as mayor. Lights On Afterschool, coming October 22 with thousands of events nationwide, is a ready-made opportunity to open your doors. 

Resources 

• Full report: The Future of Youth Development: Building Systems and Strengthening Programs (free to read and download) 

• Afterschool Alliance 21st CCLC policy updates 

• Afterschool Alliance’s guide to hosting a legislative site visit 

• Forum for Youth Investment Knowledge Center