After School Collaboration

 

As POISE spent time with a select group of existing and potential grantees, who primarily provide after school programming services, we came to the realization that valuable programming and resources available at one organization were not utilized or known to others.  We then began to ask if these organizations would benefit from a collaboration of similar programs to discuss ideas, programming, and best practices.  The response from each organization was yes.

Accordingly, POISE took the initiative to bring these organizations together.  Currently, this group is an informal network of after school providers seeking to determine and develop methods of providing better services to the youth they serve by taking advantage of the knowledge, resources, and efficiencies that a collaboration brings. The Foundation has engaged the Program to Aid Citizen Enterprise (PACE) to facilitate the development of the collaboration. As a management services organization (MSO), PACE has a thirty-eight year history of providing capacity building grants, training and consulting services to community-based nonprofit organizations who represent African American and other disadvantaged communities.

The Collaboration is an eighteen month process that will allow the various programs to network, share best practices, obtain staff and professional development, and expose their youth to other youth from around the Pittsburgh Region.  The After-School Collaborative will bring together approximately eight to twelve small to medium sized after-school programs from across Allegheny and Beaver Counties.  The Collaborative will serve between 15 and 25 adult providers and impact between 700 and 1,000 children represented by the various programs.  The programs represent the following communities: Hill District, North Side, Downtown Pittsburgh, Moon Township, Aliquippa, Coraopolis, North Versailes, and Manchester.   Program participants currently include:

 Alliquippa Alliance for Unity & Development                 BCC Ministries

 Mooncrest After School Program                                CADA Programs 

 Manchester Youth Development Center                       Urban Youth Action

 Schenley Heights Community Develop. Corp.               Coraopolis Church of God

 Young Men & Women's African Heritage Association

   Collaboration meeting hosted at CADA programs

Our long term goals for the project include: increased individual program and group resources; increased knowledge and professionalism among staff; and children who, through broader exposure, have a wider view of the community and their place in it.

 

As stated above, one of the goals of the collaboration is to foster an environment where the youth from one community can come together with youth from other communities.  Children, who are enrolled in a community-based after school program in their neighborhood, seldom come in contact with children or adults from other communities and therefore have a very narrow view of the more general community and their opportunities within it.

 

 

On July 31, 2007, 150 youth from the various

collaboration partners participated in a day of horticulture while helping the Fresh Air camp in Mars, PA plant trees, shrubs and flowers.  This activity is an example of bringing youth from various communities together to accomplish an important task.  It also allowed the youth to experience a field trip out of an urban setting.