Linking School and After-School

There are numerous ways in which schools and after-school programs can exchange infor- mation and coordinate activities so as to ben- efit young people.

First, a professional can work with youths in both school and after-school settings. For exam- ple, a program developed by faculty at the Har- vard Graduate School of Education and McLean Hospital focuses on prevention work in mental health. Practitioners work in classrooms pro- viding academic and behavioral support serv- ices, with special attention to at-risk students. The practitioners continue to work with stu- dents in an onsite, after-school program using additional methods. This kind of approach might appeal to teachers — whatever their sub- ject — who feel constrained in what they can do in their regular classrooms and want to ex- periment with new methods. In the after- school setting, teachers aren’t bound by formal curriculum requirements and can pursue addi- tional topics or allot more time to them or have relationships with young people in ways that aren’t typical in school.

Second, a liaison position can be created for linking school with after-school programs. This position, which tends to be more admin- istrative than direct service, focuses on ex- changing information and coordinating activ- ities.

A third approach to transferring knowledge and practices between school and after-school programs involves researchers who cross boundaries and cross-fertilize. As part of our evaluation of After School Matters in Chicago, we devel- oped a mock job interview for high school stu- dents that was administered by human re- source professionals. Extensive debriefing of the human resource interviewers revealed that many youths had experiences and skills that would be valued by employers, but the youths often had no idea this was true and didn’t al- ways successfully communicate their creden- tials in the interview. We discussed those find- ings with Chicago Public Schools administra-

tors, who invited us to develop a curriculum to teach high school students how to do well in interviews for internships and jobs. We’re cur- rently in the midst of evaluation and further development of this curriculum and hope to scale it up both in Chicago and elsewhere. Of course, this curriculum could also be imple- mented in after-school programs.