Next Generation Bulletin 8 - July 2008

Submitted by LauraM on Thu, 08/27/2009 - 13:17

In this issue, we summarize the work three learning groups have been doing with recently awarded mini-grants. These grants focus on three major areas: External Communications, Policy and Higher Education. Also, read about the latest course being offered in New York in after-school, a youth worker's perspective in Vermont, a new Next Gen Toolkit and more.

NEXT GEN BULLETIN - July 2008

In This Issue

Promising Practices Spotlight

Youth Worker Perspectives

New Resources

Recent Events

Lessons from Other Fields

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Next Generation Youth Work Coalition

Coalition Update

The Coalition steering committee recently awarded mini-grants to three learning groups to ensure continued progress on the workforce agenda. For several months the groups met to determine critical action needed in three major areas. Below we summarize the work they are doing over the next few months.

External Communications. With communicating the importance of a quality youth work workforce to a broader audience as its goal, this group decided Next Gen should partner with the Frameworks Institute, a leader in strategic framing, and Corporate Voices for Working Families. Both organizations will be working with Next Gen to develop messages and tools to be used by business leaders to help communicate about these issues with their business peers, policy makers and community leaders. This work should be completed in late fall, 2008.

Policy. This group launched a federal policy analysis in partnership with the National Afterschool Association, which aims to identify opportunities embedded within existing youth-related legislation and/or publicly funded programs to strengthen supports for youth workers. The scan will also include case studies of how specific states are using federal dollars creatively and/or flexibly to support youth workers. A final report should be available in September 2008.

Higher Education. Not enough is known about higher education opportunities in youth work (coursework, certificates, degrees). To address this gap and to strengthen connections between education, compensation and retention, this partnership with the University of Minnesota will expand our systemic knowledge of what is available in post-secondary settings in selected states. A related protocol will be developed for states to look at demand for post-secondary opportunities in youth work, obstacles, and more. This work began in July and continues through September.

Promising Practices Spotlight

New Opportunities for Youth Workers in New York

The Center for After-School Excellence is excited to announce that CUNY will offer its inaugural after-school course, created by professors with significant input from field professionals, at Hostos and Kingsborough Community Colleges in fall 2008. The course provides students with an understanding of how politics, government and society have an impact on the after-school profession and covers implementing, managing, and evaluating programs. In August, the Center will launch its first graduate-level, non-degree professional certificate program in collaboration with Hunter College's School of Education. The program is designed for after-school staff that have already earned a Bachelors degree, and students will have the opportunity to earn nine graduate credits over the course of an academic year. For more information, please visit www.afterschoolexcellence.org/.

Building a Regional Workforce Development System for Youth Workers in the Bay Area

The conference was designed to support the professional growth of youth workers; outline clear pathways for recruiting, developing and retaining a diverse workforce; and to build a regional workforce system. The energy around identifying oneself as a youth worker was powerful and created a platform for pushing the discussion beyond competencies and professional development to issues such as compensation and career pathways. The urgency expressed by participants was captured by Margaret Brodkin, Director of the Department of Children, Youth and their Families when she stated: "Ten years ago there was $0 for the childcare field; now there's $13 million available. There are possibilities here for this kind of outcome, too. We are in a unique position right now. We have an incredible infrastructure to draw on, and we can change some of our policies. I am committed to take a leadership role. We can do something special here." To read more about the conference click here.

Youth Worker Perspectives

I self-identify with the profession of "Youth Worker," which I take loosely to mean any person who professionally facilitates the development of young people outside of a school setting. Unfortunately, this term often does not carry the messages I intend. Indeed, the profession itself is evolving in so many directions that it can defy definition. Since there is not yet a clear category for me to inhabit, my colleagues and I find ourselves in the interesting and frustrating role of defining our profession.

To read the rest of Lucas Orwig's essay, visit: http://nextgencoalition.org/?q=node/27.

New Data about Vermont Youth Workers. As a part of the Next Gen Career Pathways Project, Vermont surveyed individuals working in after-school programs to collect information about the field and to determine professional development needs, incentives and barriers. Click here to read their findings.

New Resources

Youth Work Counts Toolkit.

This Next Gen toolkit was designed to help organizations collect and use local survey and focus group data about frontline youth workers to make the case for investing in workforce development. The tools which include a guide, survey and focus group instruments, data entry and analysis worksheet and sample PPT presentation, are based on a survey conducted by the Coalition in 2006 and were created to ease the burden on those interested in bringing data about the frontline youth worker population into their work. www.nextgencoalition.org/?q=node/25

A Well-Prepared Workforce Brings Out the Best in Our Kids.

This report provides a snapshot of workers in the state of Washington, gives a voice to their needs and wishes for a professional development system and includes a summary of existing efforts. Based on extensive data gathering and research the report proposes a framework that includes seven components: measurement of outcomes; core competencies; identity of the profession; career and wage ladder; training catalog; professional registry and quality review. http://forumfyi.org/files/AWellPrepared
WorkforceManual-printed%20report.pdf

California Explores Workforce Supply Issues.

This policy brief written by Children Now covers the challenges the state of California is facing in meeting staffing needs for its expanded system of publicly-funded after school programs. The data and findings presented in the brief are based on interviews with after school coordinators at 16 districts that experienced substantial growth in the number of publicly-funded programs they support. http://publications.childrennow.org
/publications/education/afterschool_brief_2008.cfm

Unpacking Youth Work Practice.

The Forum's Out-of-School Time Policy Commentary series is back! In this issue we discuss the implications of recent research led by Bart Hirsch, Reed Larson and Charles Smith. Each study helps deepen our understanding of youth work practice and can inform policy strategies aimed at developing a strong, stable, committed and prepared OST workforce. www.forumfyi.org/node/452

Student Debt Forgiveness for Nonprofit Professionals.

The Project on Student Debt has created a one-stop-shop for information on the new legislation for federal loan forgiveness for nonprofit professionals. Many questions have been raised and this site will be kept up to date on the latest developments: www.IBRinfo.org

Lessons from the Front Lines.

Motivated, competent Youth Development Workers are essential to effective youth outreach programs. This study explores factors affecting job turnover among Youth Development Workers (YDW's) through detailed direct observation and interviews of six YDW's in four organizations and a group interview with eight different YDW's. http://www.nae4ha.org/directory
/jyd/jyd_article.aspx?id=8abd7ee5-af0f-4c25-876e-43c67545e94d

Recent Events

Northeast Regional Higher Education Colloquium met in May at Cambridge College in Cambridge, Mass. The primary discussion topic of the day was developing a "Community Education Umbrella" for all degree programs targeted to after-school and youth development program workers.

National Afterschool Association. This spring, the Coalition led a session at the NAA conference that allowed participants to explore connections between higher education, compensation and retention and to interact with sites involved in the Career Pathways project to explore challenges and successes.

Foundations, Inc. Ellen Gannett's presentation at this conference in February 2008 provided a forum for discussing workforce inequities in school-based after-school settings, where paraprofessionals often stand shoulder to shoulder with classroom teachers yet earn far less per hour.
New England 21st CCLC. Introducing Next Gen's agenda into this spring's meeting of state 21st CCLC coordinators underscored the Coalition's role as a bridge-builder between youth development and after-school. Youth workers who assist classroom teachers in after-school programs are often "invisible," and this primarily school-based audience appreciated the opportunity to bring voice to the issues of inequity, lack of benefits, low salaries, and high turnover.

BOOST. In May Ellen Gannett presented key findings from Next Gen as a foundation for soliciting input, suggesting priorities and creating local, state and national plans that draw upon Next Gen's action agenda and the Career Pathways Project.

CalSac. Deborah Craig facilitated a three-hour workshop focused on frontline worker survey data, promising practices, and the Next Gen action agenda. Participants from communities around the state engaged with the data and the ideas, applying them to local challenges, particularly recruitment and retention.

Lessons from Other Fields

Raise Teacher Starting Salaries, Attract Better Teachers?
The US lags behind other countries in teacher compensation, which adversely affects the ability to recruit high-quality candidates. A recent study by McKinsey and Company argues that good starting salaries are an essential ingredient for getting the right people to become teachers. www.epi.org/content.cfm/webfeatures_snapshots_20080402

Reforming Teacher Pay: The Search for a Workable Goal-Driven Compensation System. This Policy Trends report by Reino Makkonen and Kristin Arnold for WestEd examines the growing interest in differentiated compensation, identifying purposes for which it is used and explaining why, among these purposes, rewarding educators for improving student achievement remains the most challenging.

www.wested.org/cs/we/view/rs/797

Pam Garza, Deborah Craig and Nicole Yohalem

Next Generation Youth Work Coalition

For more information on Next Gen, contact:
Deborah Craig at deborah@forumfyi.org.

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A Concise Case for Investing in Youth Workers

In order to strengthen supports for youth workers, it is critical that new champions join the effort. We must not preach only to the choir! This two-page case statement is designed to make a clear, concise, convincing argument for investing in youth workers, not just youth programs. We hope it is useful as you reach out to new groups of stakeholders to engage in this work, including business, education, higher education and more.

Youth-Worker-Case-Statement-March2010.pdf

Strengthening the Youth Development/After-School Workforce

Despite major advancements in the field, staffing – everything from recruitment, retention, supervision, to performance – remains a major challenge. There is a need to reexamine currently held assumptions about what it will take to build a strong, stable, committed workforce. What incentives? What opportunities? What requirements? For whom? In what combination? This brief report by Nicole Yohalem, Karen Pittman and Sharon Lovick Edwards highlights lessons learned over the past six years by the Forum for Youth Investment, Cornerstones for Kids and the Next Generation Youth Work Coalition, with an eye toward implications for funders. We summarize what is known about youth workers, why investments in this workforce matter, and what funders (private and public) can do to spark and support these investments. The goal is to support discussions about how focused attention on workforce development can be a part of funders’ individual and collective efforts to strengthen and expand after-school and youth development programs and systems.

Find the document here: http://forumfyi.org/content/strengthening-youth-developmentafter-school-...