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The Institute for Youth Development is committed to providing youth development professionals with an opportunity to gain practical skills that can be implemented in their interactions with youth immediately. This listing of upcoming workshops helps promote a positive environment with youth.
Register now! Space is limited.
The Learn24 program finder helps District of Columbia families search for out-of-school time (OST) programming in specific focus areas, ages, locations, and more. Help families locate an out-of-school opportunity where school-aged children can learn, grow, and play outside of the traditional school hours by listing your program(s). Complete this form to have your program listed.
 In the first newsletter of each month, The Institute for Youth Development will highlight a specific indicator from the Weikart Center's Youth Program Quality Assessment (PQA) on promising practices in the field.
 The components of the Engaging Environment and some strategies to apply to programming are described below.
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Planning - Youth should be given the opportunity to make plans. Staff will provide youth with multiple opportunities to make plans for projects and activities. While planning projects and activities, staff should use two or more planning strategies. Examples of planning strategies include brainstorming, idea webbing, and backwards planning.
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Choice - This covers youth being able to make authentic choices based on their interests. Staff should give the opportunity for all youth to make on open-ended content choice within the framework of the activity. For this, youth can decide topics within a subject area. Staff should also provide opportunities for all youth to make at least one content choice within the specific activity. An example of this would be youth choosing what role they will play within a group.
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Reflection - Towards the end of the programming day youth should be given the space to reflect. Staff can engage youth through intentional reflection on something they covered during the course of that particular program time. Staff should use two or more strategies to encourage youth to share what they have done and their experiences. Staff should also initiate structured opportunities for youth to give feedback and allow all youth to make presentations to the group.
Explore additional resources about the David P. Weikart Youth Program Quality model for at this link.
The Wallace Foundation recently released a report shedding light on how parents, teachers, and OST providers perceive the value of out-of-school time (OST) in children's social, emotional, and academic development. In the report, parents, teachers, and OST providers explain how they see extracurricular programs as providing a child-centered experience with a differentiated and highly valuable offering. Yet parent responses suggest that participation in high-quality extracurricular opportunities is not equitably distributed. Read the full article here.
Discovery Education provides a variety of no-cost resources that support students in all learning environments. These step-by-step sessions are designed to give young people unique STEM challenges, questions to consider, and ways to explore their career path in STEM outside of the classroom. These sessions will prompt young people to begin considering their own workforce readiness, and then use various tools and strategies to investigate their own passions as they work toward uncovering STEM careers that are best for them. Students can also view profiles of people who are using the skills they learned in school to become the kind of problem solvers that make a difference. Some activities included for afterschool programs include:
Learn more here.
The Bowser Administration, Office of the Deputy Mayor for Education (DME), and the Office of Out of School Time Grants and Youth Outcomes (OST Office) is now accepting applications from eligible entities to design, build, and implement Safe Passage Safe Block (SPSB) programs in designated Safe Passage Priority Areas. The SPSB programs will provide students safe routes to and after school and provide an afterschool program that allows students to develop skills to reduce aggression. The SPSB programs will also allow schools, school staff, students, and SPSB staff to build and strengthen relationships in the surrounding communities.
The deadline to apply is Tuesday, October 12, 2021 at 5:00 pm.
View the full RFA here.
The Jack Kent Cooke Foundation is offering youth-serving nonprofit organizations in the metropolitan Washington, DC area a one-time grant of up to $35,000. The foundation's Good Neighbor Grant can support the establishment of new programs or the enhancement of existing initiatives that support students with financial need. A letter of inquiry must be received by 5:00 pm on Friday, October 15, 2021 to be considered. For more information, please click here.
Diverse City Fund awards grants to people of color-led social justice projects in DC. Successful awardees can receive up to $15,000. The deadline to apply is Wednesday, October 20, 2021. Learn more about eligibility, selection criteria, information sessions, and more here.
Many Hands is accepting grant applications from Washington, DC area nonprofits serving women, children, and families in socioeconomic need. Focus areas include economic empowerment, education, health, and housing. One organization will receive the Many Hands $100,000 Impact Grant. Applications must be received by Friday, November 5, 2021. View the application here.
Weekly newsletter of funding opportunities.
 For resources and additional information on the District of Columbia Government’s response to coronavirus (COVID-19), please visit coronavirus.dc.gov.
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