Workforce Support for Urban After‐School Programs: Turning Obstacles into Opportunities

Abstract

Highlights Resource and workforce challenges impede adoption of evidence‐based practice in after‐school programs. Academic–community partnerships inform recommendations that align with individual program goals. We describe a three‐tiered approach to workforce support with online, workshop, and on‐site components. Content prioritizes mental health kernels: emotion regulation, communication, and problem‐solving. Support leverages teachable moments inherent to recreation and harnesses staff talent and expertise.

New Perspectives on the Child‐ and Youth‐Serving Workforce in Low‐Resource Communities: Fostering Best Practices and Professional Development

“…Frazier et al. () offer a first person account of four academic–community partnerships engaged in practice‐based research in urban afterschool programs toward building a resource‐efficient, empirically informed, multitiered model of workforce support. Mehta et al.…”

CORE: Compassion Oriented Reflection and Engagement to Guide Academic-Community Partnership

“…Though systematic infusion of compassion-oriented literature into our work came later in our partnership with Champions , its values inherently align with long-standing efforts of our team. Just as we have called for a redefinition of traditional research concepts like feasibility ( Frazier et al, 2008 ) and sustainability ( Frazier et al, 2019 ), historically we have placed strong emphasis on the vision, perspectives, and lived experience of partnering community stakeholders. Consultative decisions lean heavily toward highlighting Champions ’ existing strengths and addressing needs and barriers that partners identified as most urgent, rather than pushing forward adhering to original, even collaboratively determined, implementation goals.…”

“…Lastly, we re-appraised the extent to which these pre-existing notions were applicable to the situation at hand, feasible given our goals and available resources, and truly necessary to progress. We revised our role to become more active participants in their organizational change process, leveraging our time and effort as added resource to create space for lasting growth (see Frazier et al, 2019 ).…”

“…To address this gap, DIS scientists have increasingly leveraged a wide variety of academic-community partnerships (ACP) to transport EBPs to socioeconomically vulnerable communities (e.g., Fagan et al, 2012 ). Systematic cultivation of ACPs has yielded a robust body of work describing conceptual models to maximize the success of EBP implementation in community-based organizations (CBOs) (see Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research, Damschroder et al, 2009 ), and investigators have presented frontline challenges and examples of problem solving, “lessons learned,” and recommendations for the procedures of ACP ( Frazier et al, 2019 ; Stetler et al, 2006 ). In contrast to the well-established literature describing what to do (e.g., specific steps) in partnership, a growing discourse has increasingly called for guidance in the process of ACP, or how to do it (e.g., ethics, Campbell & Morris, 2017 ; Chou & Frazier, 2019 ).…”

Strengthening the Child‐ and Youth‐Serving Workforce: Surveying the Landscape, Overcoming Challenges

“…Articles in this issue involving afterschool programs, such as by Frazier et al. () on organizational processes to support the use of evidence‐based practices, and by Kuperminc et al. () on how organizational processes focused on positive adult‐youth interactions enhance program quality, each illustrate the value to afterschool youth programing of taking an organizational process perspective for workforce enhancement.…”