Tools & Resources for your Organization

USE THESE TOOLS TO STRENGTHEN YOUR PROGRAM

Choose a topic area within which you want to access tools, and then directly link to the resources provided!

MAIN TOPICS TOOLS

• Engagement

  Note: To use the first five tools below, you must be a United Way staff member and log in. If you are not a United Way staff member, reach out to your local United Way and ask them to share these Community Conversations materials.

  Introduction to Community Conversations — The United Way's hub for Harwood Institute for Public Innovation tools.

  Community Conversations Workbook — This is a complete guide to establishing, recruiting for, hosting, facilitating, and documenting community conversations.

  Annotated Community Conversation Guide — This community conversation guide is broken down for a facilitator.

  Ask about Aspirations — This quick set of four questions can be used to build relationships and learn from all types of stakeholders around a variety of issues, either one-on-one or in small groups.

  Community Rhythms — This small group discussion guide helps you understand the stages of community life and the strategic implications for moving communities forward.

  Supporting the Education Pipeline: A Business Engagement Toolkit for Community-Based Organizations — This online toolkit, co-developed by United Way Worldwide, Corporate Voices for Working Families, and the Workforce Strategy Center, provides lessons on how community leaders can identify potential business partners, set realistic goals, and create partnerships for long-term youth success.

  Engaging Families in Out-of-School Time Programs Toolkit: Tools to Strengthen After School and Youth Programs by Increasing Family Involvement — This toolkit for practitioners is based largely on BOSTnet's (United Way of Massachusetts Bay and Merrimack Valley) four-year Engaging Families Initiative.

  United Way - Strengthening Families Toolkit — This website provides strategies and supporting materials and activities to help local United Ways implement the Strengthening Families framework.

  The Community Café — This online learning community acts as a sharing platform for resources and ideas around strengthening families in local communities.

• Advocacy

  Afterschool Alliance Policy and Action Center — Their website has resources on advocating for afterschool, including templates for community petitions and letters to Congress.

  Advocacy Capacity Tool — From Bolder Advocacy, this tool helps organizations identify specific opportunities and gaps in their current strategies, benchmark their skills in relation to advocacy, and take advantage of Bolder Advocacy's resources to maximize the impact of advocacy efforts. The ACT can also be used to conduct evaluations.

  Afterschool in Your State — Use this Afterschool Alliance State-by-State map to learn about the OST landscape in your state and be a more effective advocator.

• Coalitions

  United Way of Massachusetts Bay and Merrimack Valley: Success for Life Planning and Mobilization Guide — This online toolkit was developed by UWMBMV as a way to guide improvements around OST services for Massachusetts's youth. The guide translates the process used and lessons learned from this planning and mobilization effort around youth outcomes into an approach that can be used locally.

  Developing Effective Coalitions: An Eight Step Guide — This guide, based on a framework developed by Larry Cohen, offers concrete steps towards building effective partnerships and provides tips for successful collaborations and partnerships.

  Afterschool in Your State — Use this Afterschool Alliance State-by-State map to learn about on-going OST efforts in your state and potentially an existing afterschool network.

  Connecting School and Afterschool: 15 Ways to Improve Partnerships
  This resource, sponsored by United Way of Massachusetts Bay and Merrimack Valley and the Nellie Mae Education Foundation, offers activity cards with coordinated step-by-step action plans around connecting schools with afterschool programs to better serve children and families.

• Quality

  Beyond The Bell Toolkit — This toolkit contains 96 ready-to-use tools covering everything from program management and partnerships to evaluation to continuous program improvement measures. It is only accessible through purchase; however, there is a free “Tool of the Month."

  Early Warning Indicators: An Afterschool Guide — This guide from NIOST gives tips for building partnerships between OST programs and schools to support youth with Early Warning Indicators, and it provides tools for designing effective OST experiences.

  After-School Toolkit: Tips, Techniques and Templates for Improving Program Quality — This kit shares tools and techniques that increased the quality of literacy-focused programming and helped improve student reading gains in an eight-year, $58 million afterschool endeavor to improve achievement in low-performing schools in five California cities.

  Building Citywide Systems for Quality: A Guide and Case Studies for Afterschool Leaders — This guide from The Wallace Foundation and the Forum for Youth Investment explains how to build or strengthen a Quality Information System (QIS)—an intentional, organized effort to improve afterschool program quality.

  Youth Program Quality Assessment (PQA) and School-Age PQA — This resource from the Weikart Center for Youth Program Quality provides assessment tools to help OST programs determine the quality of learning environments and identify staff training needs. It has a general PQA, as well as ones specific to STEM, Camp, Health and Wellness, and Arts.

  Out-of-School Time Program Research & Evaluation Database — This database from the Harvard Family Research Project (HFRP) provides resources on high-quality evaluation techniques and the impact it has on OST programs success.

  Afterschool Evaluation 101: How to Evaluate an Expanded Learning Program — This guide from the HFRP offers a step-by-step process for programs to effectively approach evaluation and the program’s capacity for it, to focus the evaluation and choose a design, and to analyze and present the evaluation data.

  Measurement Tools for Evaluating Out-of-School Time Programs: An Evaluation Resource — This HFRP tool explains instruments and tools that OST programs can use for on-the-ground evaluation.

  Measuring Youth Program Quality - A Guide to Assessment Tools, Second Edition — This guide compares and evaluates assessment tools used in OST programs.

• Data

  How to Find Data That Help Improve Student Outcomes — The Institute for Higher Education Policy’s guidebook explores the use of data for developing stronger education initiatives and improving student outcomes. 

  Dabbling in the Data: A Hands-on Guide to Participatory Data Analysis — This tool from Public Profit provides 15 different exercises for hands-on data analysis that program staff can use to interpret their data.

  Early Warning Indicators: An Afterschool Guide — This guide from NIOST gives tips for building partnerships between OST programs and schools to support youth with Early Warning Indicators, and it provides tools for designing effective OST experiences.

  From Soft Skills to Hard Data: Measuring Youth Program Outcomes — This extensive guide from the Forum for Youth Investment summarizes information about tools that programs can use to measure youth progress in “social-emotional” or “21st century skills”.

  Youthservices.net Data Tracking — This service offers data collection and program evaluation capabilities to service providers that allows users to register participants, track attendance, and measure outcomes.

  Afterschool Data: Six Tip Sheets on What Cities Need To Know — This set of tip sheets from The Wallace Foundation provides advice on using data to improve OST programming.

• Action-Agendas

  United Way of Massachusetts Bay and Merrimack Valley: Success for Life Planning and Mobilization Guide — This online toolkit was developed by UWMBMV as a way to guide improvements around OST services for Massachusetts's youth. The guide translates the process used and lessons learned from this planning and mobilization effort around youth outcomes into an approach that can be used locally.

  United Way Worldwide — Planning Principles Overview — This presentation from United Way Worldwide is on outcome-focused planning for community change. It shares principles for building effective community change strategies.

  United Way Worldwide — Inputs for Action Planning — This questionnaire was designed to help action planners determine if they have the inputs in place for outcome-focused planning for community change.

• Funding

  Moving Summer Learning Forward: A Strategic Roadmap for Funding in Tough Times — The National Summer Learning Association's in-depth, 27-page guide to locating funding sources provides examples of using private funding and local partnerships to leverage resources and maintain funding.

  Finding Funding: A Guide to Federal Sources for Asset-Building Initiatives — This guide from The Finance Project and the American Public Human Services Association identifies federal funds that can support asset-building activities and services.

  Replacing Initial Grants — This guide provides concrete suggestions and examples of how leaders have successfully replaced initial seed money and found long-term funding opportunities.

  Snapshots of Sustainability: Profiles of Successful Strategies for Financing Out-of-School Time Programs — This tool from The Finance Project includes profiles of successful sustainability strategies of Out-of-School Time programs, and it provides resources that programs can use to implement sustainability strategies in their programmatic and financial structure.

  Sustainability Planning Workbook: Building for the Future — This workbook from The Finance Project gives step-by-step instructions on navigating the sustainability planning process.

  Know Your Funders: A Guide to STEM Funding for Afterschool — This funding guide from The Afterschool Alliance provides program staff with tips and resources for navigating funding opportunities for STEM afterschool programs.

 

FEATURED TOPICS TOOLS

• Attendance

  Count Us In!: Working Together to Show That Every School Day Matters — This Toolkit from Attendance Works includes tools to help plan and implement a successful Attendance Awareness Month in September. It has information on the importance of attendance, the current state of absenteeism in the country, "what to do when" to prepare for Attendance Awareness Month, key stakeholders to engage in the movement, and more.

  A Community Toolkit to Address and Eliminate Chronic Absenteeism — From the Every Student, Every Day Initiative, this toolkit provides information, suggestions for action steps, and lists of tools and resources that individuals, leaders, and systems can use to initiate or improve work around addressing and eliminating chronic absenteeism in communities through collaborative action.

• College & Career Readiness

  The Potential of Career and College Readiness and Exploration in Afterschool Programs — This article from the American Youth Policy Forum, featured in the Expanding Minds and Opportunities compendium, explores the importance of using the potential of out-of-school programs to promote college and career opportunities. It gives specific examples of successful programs and initiatives, and it recommends certain steps for OST programs to take to be successful.

  Realizing the College Dream — This resource helps educators increase the rate of college attendance among low-income, first-generation students. It has interactive workshops and hands-on activities about planning for and affording college, examples of experiences that challenge students to picture themselves in college, and important information that can help students understand the economic value of college. Visit their website to download the guide for free.

• Common Core

  Afterschool and the Common Core State Standards — This issue brief from the Afterschool Alliance explores how out-of-school programs have the opportunity to help students develop the communication, problem solving, and critical thinking skills that the Common Core promotes. It explores the standards, the ways in which students are and are not measuring up, and the role that out-of-school programs can play. Click here for a two-page brief.

  Linking Common Core and Expanded Learning — This report from the Partnership for Children and Youth describes ways expanded learning programs can integrate programmatic elements to better align with Common Core standards.

• HOST / HEPA

  Out of School Nutrition and Physical Activity Initiative (OSNAP) — Developed by the Harvard School of Public Health Prevention Research Center, OSNAP helps OST programs improve policies and practices related to physical activity and nutrition. Their interactive website offers: tailored action plans, assessment tools, guides for policy writing and implementation, tips, and many other helpful resources.

  Changing Lives, Saving Lives: A Step-by-Step Guide to Developing Exemplary Practices in Healthy Eating, Physical Activity and Food Security in Afterschool Programs — This guide from the Healthy Behaviors Initiative shares research-driven practices that OST programs can use to develop a strong plan to integrate health-driven initiatives into their programs. It gives tools for developing action agendas and assessing progress in order to help promote healthy lifestyles in children's lives.

• Literacy

  Literacy Strategies After School: A Teaching and Learning Strategies Guide — This in-depth guide, created by the Connecticut After School Network, is for afterschool program providers who work with elementary school children. It offers specific teaching and learning strategies and lesson suggestions for incorporating literacy activities into programs.

  Adolescent Literacy Development in Out-of-School Time: A Practitioner's Guidebook — This guidebook focuses on adolescent literacy-development initiatives in OST and ways to improve middle and high school students' processing of written and oral language.

  You For Youth Literacy Website — In the Literacy section of their website there are a variety of resources on the importance of literacy, strategies to implement literacy initiatives, and tools to plan, implement, and assess programs.  

  Afterschool Training Toolkit: Literacy — This resource from SEDL, the National Center for Quality Afterschool, provides a basic overview of the importance of literacy programs, key elements for afterschool literacy planning, and different types of literacy practices.

• Mentoring

  Elements of Effective Practice for Mentoring: Fourth Edition — This report from MENTOR: The National Mentoring Partnership shares six evidence-based Standards that should be incorporated into mentoring practice, and under each Standard includes Benchmarks to promote the effectiveness of the mentoring relationships. Also, it offers specific suggestions around creating and strengthening mentoring programs in a Program Planning & Management section.

  MENTOR’s Research In Action Series — This series includes 10 issues that cover an array of important topics within mentoring; each issue includes research, tools, and additional resources.

  Center for Evidence-Based Mentoring — This website, created by the University of Massachusetts Boston and MENTOR, is a sharing platform for ideas and research on youth mentoring programs. It includes links to additional tools and to current projects in the field.

  Integrating Effective Mentoring Strategies and Services Into Youth Services: Webinar Archive — This Department of Labor's webinar on developing and implementing effective mentoring opportunities in youth services programs provides suggestions of resources to take advantage of from MENTOR: The National Mentoring Partnership.

  Mentoring Youth and Young Parents: A Guidebook for Programs Helping Youth and Young Parents Navigate a Pathway to Self-Sufficiency — This guidebook, developed by Social Policy Research Associates, gives suggestions on developing high-quality mentoring services, examples of initiatives that grantees have taken, and additional resources on mentoring.

  How to Build a Successful Mentoring Program Using the Elements of Effective Practice — This toolkit provides valuable templates, tools, and advice in regards to designing, planning, managing, structuring, and evaluating mentoring programs.

  Mentoring Immigrant Youth: A Toolkit for Program Coordinators — This toolkit contains content on best practices, key strategies, and important considerations for mentoring programs with immigrant youth.

  The Wisdom of Age: A Handbook for Staff — This resource from MENTOR equips staff of mentoring programs with the knowledge necessary to most effectively recruit, train, and support mentors over the age of 50. Similarly, this resource  is for the mentors over 50, and it provides hand-on training exercises and tools to help them be an effective mentor.

• Social Emotional Learning

  CASEL Guides: Effective Social and Emotional Learning Programs – Preschool & Elementary School Edition and Middle & High School Edition— These guides from CASEL (Cooperative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning) share systematic frameworks for evaluating the level of quality of social and emotional programs for preschool & elementary school and middle & high school students. They share best practices on selecting and implementing SEL programs, and they offer recommendations for advancing SEL practice. Watch a webinar on how to use this guide here.

  Supporting Children & Youth with Social-Emotional Needs — This resource from Kids Included Together (KIT) highlights the importance of program staff understanding kids' Social-Emotional needs. It shares ways to model control, program supports and accommodations, resources for program personnel, and recommended book lists for kids and teenagers to help them grow socially and emotionally.

• Special Populations

  Cultural Competency Toolbox — From the Community Tool Box, this chapter focuses on building culturally competent organizations. It shares information on aspects of cultural competency, the importance of cultural competency, and traits and steps organizations must have and take to be culturally competent. It also provides a checklist and tools on building cultural competency, in addition to a PowerPoint covering this information.

  What is Inclusion? — This booklet from Kids Included Together (KIT)  highlights what inclusion looks like, the benefits of inclusion, resources on inclusion, and ways to assess your program's level of inclusiveness. Click here to access an Inclusion checklist for programs.

  More than Just Talk: Everyday English Language Teaching — This Webinar from the Center for Afterschool and Expanded Learning explores strategies for engaging English Language Learners (ELLs). It gives advice and activities to inspire ELLs' reading, writing, listening, and speaking in afterschool. 

  America After 3PM: From Big Cities to Small Towns — This report delves into the America After 3PM study data specific to rural communities. It explores the level of access to, barriers to, and satisfaction of afterschool programs by youth in rural communities.

• STEAM

  Afterschool STEM Hub — This website contains talking points, fact sheets, infographics, and much more that can be used to advocate for OST as a critical component in the push for STEM.

  STEM After School: How to Design and Run Great Program Activities, Second Edition — This guidebook from ExpandED Schools provides suggestions of ways OST programs can better integrate science elements.

  Frontiers in Urban Science Exploration Research Guide: Strategies to Advance Informal STEM Education in Expanded Learning Settings — This guide from ExpandED Schools and Every Hour Counts provides examples of successful STEM initiatives, program resources and curriculum, models of evaluation, and partnership and funding options.

  Know Your Funders: A Guide to STEM Funding for Afterschool — This funding guide from The Afterschool Alliance provides program staff with tips and resources for navigating funding opportunities for STEM afterschool programs.

  Science After School: How to Design and Run Great Program Activities — This guidebook for program leaders, from ExpandED Learning, covers the importance of science in OST programs, the ways to design a science-focused program, and the available methods of finding support.

  STEMfinity — This website is a valuable resource for finding a variety of project-based activities for youth from Pre-K through high school, from robotics to drone technology to 3-D printing.

  Click2Science — This website is an interactive resource that covers STEM program work, from planning STEM activities to interacting meaningfully with youth during programs.

  You For Youth: STEM — This website provides information and resources related to STEM in the following four categories: Introduction to STEM, Implementation Strategies, Coaching My Staff, and Tools.

  Afterschool Alliance: STEM — The Afterschool Alliance has a wealth of information on STEAM on its website.

  National Institute on Out-of-School Time: STEM Resources — This main page for STEM resources provides around 20 links to various reports, research briefs, and guides related to STEM programming.

• Summer Learning

  Summer Starts in September: Comprehensive Planning Guide for Summer Learning Programs — This resource from the National Summer Learning Association costs a fee to receive. It includes 200 pages of research-based strategies, tools for summer program leaders, staff, and trainers, and program examples.

  Engaging Families in Afterschool and Summer Learning Programs for Middle School Youth — This article explores the importance of engaging families, and it provides suggestions of effective engagement practices. 

  Community Indicators of Effective Summer Learning Systems — This quick reference guide breaks down effective summer learning programs into six different indicators, and for each indicator gives specific targets that programs should work to meet.

• Additional Tools

  Know of additional tools that United Ways would benefit from having? Email submissions@unitedway.org to share tools and resources related to OST work.