In April and May of 2021, Karen Pittman sat down with the Forum’s three program executives and, together, they told the broader story of how the Forum is changing the odds for young people and explored the future of our work to advance equity, research, policy, and practice across all the systems and settings that shape young people’s lives.

Watch Karen's recent interview with Merita Irby, co-founder and Executive Vice President of the Forum and Managing Partner of Big Picture Approach Training and Consulting. Big Picture Approach is the Forum’s most visible effort devoted to planning and partnering for impact.

In April and May of 2021, Karen sat down with the Forum’s three program executives and, together, they tell the broader story of how the Forum is changing the odds for young people and explore the future of our work to advance equity, research, policy, and practice across all the systems and settings that shape young people’s lives. Each executive leads a unit and a set of named centers and initiatives intended to drive one of the Forum’s strategic approaches.

Karen interviewed Kimberly Howard Robinson, Ph.D., Executive Vice President of the Forum and Managing Director of our Weikart Center for Youth Program Quality. The Weikart Center is the Forum’s most visible effort devoted to strengthening practices and programs.

Citywide systems that coordinate the work of out-of-school time (OST) providers, government agencies, private funders, and others are designed to ensure that OST programs reach children who lack access to quality programming. In 2012, The Wallace Foundation asked FHI 360 to conduct an exploratory study to determine the extent to which U.S. cities with populations over 100,000 were undertaking afterschool system-building initiatives.

Before the Covid-19 pandemic, 1 out of 6 students were chronically absent. As data is reported out this year, we are likely to see a dramatic increase in chronic absence, especially for the populations hardest hit by Covid-19. What is the definition of chronic absence? What are the metrics? Since absenteeism is not just a cause of educational inequity, but a leading indicator, how can attendance and chronic absenteeism data be used and improved to assess barriers and the lack of positive conditions for learning that undermine students’ and families’ relationships with their schools?

Disruption creates opportunity. COVID, and continued racial reckonings have exposed many of the inefficiencies and inequities that are baked into our public education system and, more broadly, into public conceptions of how learning happens. Every school leader is committed to “building back better.” Many, having seen the innovation and resourcefulness of families and community organizations who stepped in to fill the complex void suddenly created by school closings, are seeing the value of building forward together – thinking about how to better leverage the assets of these critical learning partners. Only a few, however, are thinking about how to use the disruption to fundamentally transform their schools to have youth empowerment, equity, and community baked into their core.