Making the Most of Out-of-School Time

Evaluates the MOST initiative, which was launched in 1994 in Boston, Chicago, and Seattle, to improve the quantity and quality of before- and after-school programs for 5- to 14-year-olds, especially for families in low-income communities

New on the Shelf: Teens in the Library

Details a number of positive effects of the Wallace Foundation's Public Libraries as Partners in Youth Development initiative, and explores what is necessary to implement and sustain high-quality youth programs in public libraries

New on the Shelf: Teens in the Library - Findings from the Evaluation of Public Libraries as Partners in Youth Development

Several trends have come together to intensify interest in how public libraries might best support the interests and needs of youth in their communities. This study reports on findings from the Public Libraries as Partners in Youth Development (PLPYD) Initiative, a 4-year, 9-site initiative funded by the Wallace Foundation to develop innovative models for public libraries to provide high-quality educational enrichment and career development programs serving underserved low-income children and youth. The evaluation reveals that public libraries can be a resource for youth in low-income communities. In addition to providing access to technology and a "safe" place to be during out-of-school hours, evaluation results indicate libraries can provide high-quality youth employment programs that include training in both specific job skills and more general personal and social skills. These programs also can have positive impacts on the library system and the community. However, to work intensively with youth requires time, financial resources, dedicated staff, consistent leadership, and alignment of youth program with library's core mission and goals. Thus, public libraries need to assess and build their capacity for youth programs and services in a systematic way

Connecting the Dots: Data Use in Afterschool Systems

Afterschool programs are seen as a way to keep low-income children safe and to foster the skills needed to succeed in school and life. Many cities are creating afterschool systems to ensure that such programs are high-quality and widely available. One way to do so is to ensure afterschool systems develop and maintain a data system.This interim report presents early findings from a study of how afterschool systems build their capacity to understand and improve their practices through their data systems. It examines afterschool data systems in nine cities that are part of The Wallace Foundation's Next Generation Afterschool System-Building initiative, a multi-year effort to strengthen systems that support access to and participation in high-quality afterschool programs for low-income youth. The cities are Baltimore, Md., Denver, Colo., Fort Worth, Texas, Grand Rapids, Mich., Jacksonville, Fla.,Louisville, Ky., Nashville, Tenn., Philadelphia, Pa., and Saint Paul, Minn.To date, research on data use in afterschool systems has focused more on the implementation of technology than on what it takes to develop and sustain effective data use. This study found that the factors that either enabled or hampered the use of data in afterschool systems—such as norms and routines, partner relationships, leadership and coordination, and technical knowledge—had as much to do with the people and process components of the systems as with the technology.Strategies that appear to contribute to success include:    Starting small. A number of cities intentionally started with a limited set of goals for data collection and use, and/or a limited set of providers piloting a new data system, with plans to scale up gradually.    Ongoing training. Stakeholders learned that high staff turnover required ongoing introductory trainings to help new hires use management information systems and data. Providing coaching and developing manuals also helped to mitigate the effects of turnover and to further the development of more experienced and engaged staff.    Outside help. Systems varied in how they used the expertise of outside research partners. Some cities identified a research partner who participated in all phases of the development of their data systems. Others used the relationship primarily to help analyze and report data collected by providers. Still others did not engage external research partner, but identified internal staff to support the system. In any of these scenarios, dedicated staffers with skills in data analytics were key.

The Differential Effect of Anxiety and ADHD Symptoms on Inhibitory Control and Sustained Attention for Threat Stimuli: A Go/No-Go Eye-Movement Study

Objective: This study examined the synergistic effects of ADHD and anxiety symptoms on attention and inhibitory control depending on the emotional content of the stimuli. Method: Fifty-four typically developing individuals (27 children/adolescents and 27 adults) completed an eye-movement based emotional Go/No-Go task, using centrally presented (happy, angry) faces and neutral/symbolic stimuli. Sustained attention was measured through saccade latencies and saccadic omission errors (Go trials), and inhibitory control through saccadic commission errors (No-Go trials). ADHD and anxiety were assessed dimensionally. Results: Elevated ADHD symptoms were associated with more commission errors and slower saccade latencies for angry (vs. happy) faces. In contrast, angry faces were linked to faster saccade onsets when anxiety symptoms were high, and this effect prevailed when both anxiety and ADHD symptoms were high. Conclusion: Social threat impacted performance in individuals with sub-clinical anxiety and ADHD differently. The effects of anxiety on threat processing prevailed when both symptoms were high

Exploring Research Priorities of Parents Who Have Children With Down Syndrome, Cleft Lip With or Without Cleft Palate, Congenital Heart Defects, and Spina Bifida Using ConnectEpeople:A Social Media Coproduction Research Study

Background: Using social media for research purposes is novel and challenging in terms of recruitment, participant knowledge about the research process, and ethical issues. This paper provides insight into the recruitment of European parents of children with specific congenital anomalies to engage in coproduction research by using social media. Secret Facebook groups, providing optimal security, were set up for newly recruited research-aware parents (RAPs) to communicate privately and confidentially with each other and for the research team to generate questions and to interpret findings. Objective: This study aimed to use social media for the recruitment and engagement of parents in research and to determine the research priorities of parents who have children with Down syndrome, cleft lip with or without cleft palate, congenital heart defects, and spina bifida. Methods: The design was exploratory and descriptive with 3 phases. Phase 1 included the recruitment of RAPs and generation of research questions important to them; phase 2 was a Web-based survey, designed using Qualtrics software, and phase 3 included analysis and ranking of the top 10 research questions using an adapted James Lind Alliance approach. Simple descriptive statistics were used for analysis, and ethical approval was obtained from the Ethics Filter Committee of the Institute of Nursing and Health Research, Ulster University. Results: The recruitment of 32 RAPs was a sensitive process, varying in the time taken to consent (mean 51 days). However, parents valued the screening approach using the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory as a measure to ensure their well-being (mean 32.5). In phase 1, RAPs generated 98 research questions. In phase 2, 251 respondents accessed the Web-based survey, 248 consented, and 80 completed the survey, giving a completeness rate of 32.3% (80/248). Most parents used social media (74/80, 92%). Social media, online forums, and meeting in person were ranked the most preferable methods for communication with support groups networks and charities. Most respondents stated that they had a good understanding of research reports (71/80, 89%) and statistics (68/80, 85%) and could differentiate among the different types of research methodologies (62/80, 78%). Phase 3 demonstrated consensus among RAPs and survey respondents, with a need to know the facts about their child's condition, future health, and psychosocial and educational outcomes for children with similar issues. Conclusions: Social media is a valuable facilitator in the coproduction of research between parents and researchers. From a theoretical perspective, ocularcentrism can be an applicable frame of reference for understanding how people favor visual contact.This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement number 733001.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio