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For nearly 30 years, the National
Institute on Out-of-School Time at Wellesley College has moved
the afterschool field forward through its research, education
and training, consultation, and field-building. Much of NIOST’s
work has encompassed projects of national scope and influence,
several representing “firsts” for the field and
many focusing on building out-of-school time systems.
Expertise in Field-Building: NIOST has played a lead role
in a wide range of system-building initiatives across the
country. Each of these projects has employed and refined
a multi-level, multi-faceted, collaborative approach, integrating
research, evaluation and/or promising practices as part of
efforts to build staff skills, improve program quality, and
create stronger, sustainable afterschool systems. These
system-building initiatives include projects such as the
MOST (Making the Most of Out-of-School Time) system-building
initiatives in Boston, Chicago, and Seattle, funded by the
Wallace Readers’ Digest Fund; and the San Jose 4Quality
initiative and Building a Skilled and Stable Workforce Project,
funded by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.
Research & Evaluation Expertise: NIOST has worked at
the forefront of out-of-school time research and evaluation
for many years. Some of NIOST’s research and evaluation
projects have included the first national standards for afterschool
programs. These standards later became the basis for the
National Improvement and Accreditation System (NIAS)
which was developed as a partnership with the National Afterschool
Association (NAA), and development of an outcomes evaluation
system for Massachusetts
Department
of Education 21st Century Community Learning Center grantees.
This work has included extensive training of grantees in
theory
of
change
evaluation
methods,
and the development of two measurement tools, the Survey
of Afterschool Youth Outcomes (SAYO) and the Assessing Afterschool
Program Practices Tool (APT), the set of integrated tools
that now comprise the Afterschool Program Assessment System
(APAS).
The Center for Research on Women and the Stone Center for Developmental
Services and Studies, which comprise the Centers, are united
in a joint mission to educate, inform and expand our knowledge
of women's lives. It is home to an interdisciplinary community
of scholars, and theorists engaged in action, research, theory
building, publication and training. |
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