The Afterschool Coordination Follow-up Study is investigating if the development of afterschool systems in U.S. cities with populations over 100,000* has faltered, remained the same or expanded since original FHI 360 research was published in 2013.
Afterschool programs offer children opportunities for growth, learning and fun. To improve these programs and build sustainability, The Wallace Foundation funded FHI 360 in 2012 to study afterschool coordination and system-building and is funding the follow-up study — study design, data collection, monitoring and analysis, and reporting — as well.
The follow-up survey explores the adoption and sustainability of three coordination components fundamental to system-building:
- An entity to facilitate afterschool program coordination
- A common data system on children’s participation
- A common set of quality standards or a quality framework
The first part of the study focuses on sustainability or expansion of system-building in cities that reported at least one coordination component in the 2012 study. The second part focuses on how or if systems-building has been adopted in cities having none of the coordination components in the original study.
*Noted in 2012 population data for the original FHI 360 research, begun in 2012.