As the pandemic continues, your youth and staff are likely continuing to navigate multiple uncertainties. Today, we invite you to examine three important components of your program that encourage youth engagement and to reflect on whether your current practices could use fine-tuning. These suggestions apply to both in-person and virtual settings.
Tags: OST Resources
NIOST loves afterschool, so we're taking part tomorrow in the We Love Afterschool campaign from Afterschool Alliance. Here are five reasons why we say #IHeartAfterschool:
The National Institute on Out-of-School Time (NIOST) has always been focused on capacity building. Whether working with a state or city network, or a cohort of programs, NIOST helps build local capacity to serve youth in afterschool, summer, and other out-of-school time (OST) programs. One highly effective way NIOST does this is through communities of practice.
Research has found important links between levels of youth engagement and student achievement and persistence in school. These 6 tips from NIOST can help programs boost youth engagement.
Tags: OST Resources
A chapter in the new book Measure, Use, Improve! Data Use in Out-of-School Time is authored by leaders in system building at the National Institute on Out-of-School Time (NIOST). The chapter chronicles how NIOST partnered with the Wyoming Afterschool Alliance, the first frontier statewide afterschool network in the C.S. Mott 50 State Afterschool Network, to tackle the isolation experienced by out-of-school time (OST) program staff in Wyoming and build an OST quality improvement framework from the ground up.
Georgia S. Hall, Ph.D., Senior Research Scientist, National Institute on Out-of-School Time, Wellesley College is profiled in Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Active Living Research.
Tags: News, Georgia Hall
Join the Massachusetts Afterschool Partnership for the 8th annual Afterschool and Expanded Learning Opportunities Advocacy Day to ensure Massachusetts youth are prioritized in the State's budget.
Tags: News
As part of NIOST’s technical assistance work through the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) grant titled "The Afterschool & Out-of-School Time Rebound Subgrants (ASOST-R Subgrant)" NIOST launched the Reading Rally Initiative, a paired reading program in which older youth in grades 3-6 (Readers) read with younger youth in grades K-2 (Buddies). This initiative was intended to provide an opportunity for youth to build relationships with each other, engage in literacy skill-building, and generate interest and excitement about reading. See the Research Brief to learn more!
Next week marks the start of Afterschool Professionals Appreciation Week (April 20-24), and this year, we’re thinking about all of the ways we appreciate what afterschool and out-of-school-time (OST) professionals are doing in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.
May is Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, an opportunity to bring awareness to the long history of Asian American and Pacific Islander contributions to our country. This month is also a perfect opportunity for us to celebrate the positive contributions two Asian American out-of-school time programs are making to their communities.
Kathryn Wheeler, Ed.D., is among 70 individuals and groups being recognized by Big Sister Boston for their enduring commitment to believing in girls.
June is PRIDE season! Despite many positive changes in our country during the last year related to inclusion and equity, discrimination against LGBTQ people and others is still prevalent. It takes all of us working together everyday to ensure that LGBTQ youth and adults feel welcomed and supported in all of the out-of-school time places in which they spend their time. There are many resources for staff professional development available at: Facing History and Ourselves and GLSEN. Actor George Takei, best known for his role as Mr. Sulu in the original Star Trek television series, noted that we should "live our lives in a state of inclusion and wonder at the diversity of humanity." Let's all be in an inclusive and welcoming state of mind this month and beyond!
(updated on 6/14/2022)
UPDATE: This position has been filled as of June 10, 2019.
NIOST is hiring! We're seeking a training associate to join our team at Wellesley College and help us increase quality for all in out-of-school time!
Wallace Foundation Releases Core Competencies
"The Wallace Foundation has made available the Strong Directors/Skilled Staff: Guide to Using the Core Competencies that NIOST put together for the New York Department of Youth and Community Development. This handbook outlines key skills - "core competencies" - needed by after-school program directors and those they supervise. It also offers guidance and tools on how to develop the skills, including questionnaires that managers and youth workers can use to determine their strengths and weaknesses." Read more here.
Tags: News, OST Resources
Summer isn’t just about basketball hoops, sprinkler parks, and popsicles. It’s an ideal time to help adolescents and children catch up on building their reading, writing, and math skills.
“Summer experiences and out-of-school time should be embraced as opportunities to not only help put children on more equal footing when they return to the classroom, but to empower youth so that they return with improved self-esteem and have more positive experiences within the school community,” reports Georgia Hall, Ph.D., director and senior research scientist of the National Institute on Out-of-School Time (NIOST).
Tags: OST Resources
Youth workers need to be supported with opportunities for professional growth and continual professional development, writes Nancy Peter in an excerpt from the book, The Heartbeat of the Youth Development Field, co-edited by NIOST.
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The conference features 35 workshops focused on systems-building, knowledge and strategies for program managers, and innovative instructional approaches. Session topics will include: early learning, healthy summers, building and scaling summer learning systems, the latest research on program quality, connected learning, and meeting the socio-emotional as well as academic needs of middle school students.
Tags: News, Ellen S. Gannett
How can we ensure that students have high-quality learning experiences during afterschool programs? We check the data, of course. To make this possible, the National Institute on Out-of-School Time co-developed the APT (Assessment of Program Practices Tool) -- a self-assessment observation tool that afterschool programs can use to identify where their program stacks up when it comes to organization, learning, skill building, and other key aspects that are tied to positive youth outcomes. But developing the tool was just the first step.
Tags: OST Resources
For Immediate Release: March 19, 2014
The National AfterSchool Association (NAA) this week announced its list of the 25 most influential people in the afterschool community, and Ellen Gannett, M.Ed., director of the National Institute on Out-of-School Time (NIOST) at the Wellesley Centers for Women (WCW), Wellesley College, is among the honorees.
Tags: News, Ellen S. Gannett
NIOST director Ellen Gannett received the 2015 Hedley S. Dimock Award from the American Camp Association.
See all the national award winners, and learn more about the Hedley S. Dimock award.
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The National Institute on Out-of-School Time
A program of the Wellesley Centers for Women at Wellesley College
Wellesley Centers for Women
Wellesley College
106 Central Street
Wellesley, MA 02481-8203 USA
niost@wellesley[dot]edu
781.283.2547
Directions to NIOST
