AfterZones

Creating a Citywide System to Support and Sustain High-Quality After-School Programs

A study finds notable successes and some challenges in an effort to build afterschool programming for middle school children in Providence, R.I.

April 2010

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Children stand amongst life-sized chess pieces and look up to smile towards the camera.

Table of Contents

Overview

Ideas In Practice

Author(s)
Lauren J. Kotloff and Danijela Korom-Djakovic

Publisher(s)
Public/Private Ventures

Page Count 57 pages

Summary

The middle school years can be challenging for many young people, and it’s also a time when their participation in afterschool activities dramatically falls. To address that problem, Providence, R.I., developed a citywide afterschool initiative for middle schoolers called the AfterZone initiative.

Services were offered at multiple sites, integrating as many as 100 of the city’s afterschool providers into a network with a coordinated schedule and centralized registration process. The effort emphasized continuous quality improvement and worked closely with the mayor and leaders of the city’s public and private youth-serving agencies.

According to the report, the program has made “enormous progress,” enrolling nearly half the students targeted. However, long-term financing remains a challenge.

The report is the first of two studies looking at the AfterZone effort.