Afterschool intermediaries shown to expand supports for youth

New research shows that the organizations dedicated to supporting and advocating for afterschool and summer programs – known as intermediaries – made substantial contributions in helping communities during the pandemic and addressing the inequities made worse by the health crisis.

“Responding, Reimagining, Realizing: Out-of-School Time (OST) Coordination in a New Era” finds that intermediaries, or OSTIs, helped to galvanize the entire afterschool sector to assist schools, young people, and their families. Intermediaries have a range of functions, from setting quality standards for programs to providing staff development. The research was conducted by Research for Action and McClanahan Associates and commissioned by The Wallace Foundation.

The research details the broad range of activities OSTIs conducted as they responded to the pandemic and finds that system-level leaders, OST providers, and caregivers perceived important benefits from their efforts. Among their major findings:

1. OSTIs managed significant shifts in the OST system to meet new community needs.
2. OSTIs advocated to advance and sustain the OST system.
3. OSTIs formed strategic partnerships to address economic, health and educational inequities.
4. OSTIs sought to move the OST system towards greater racial equity.

Three main areas of intermediaries’ contributions and value during their pandemic responses are reviewed:

• Working and advocating for program accessibility and responsiveness to young people’s needs, such as: professional development around virtual programming and support for mental well-being; informal gatherings for peer-to-peer strategizing and sharing during challenging times; and encouraging investment by city, school district, and private funders including the use of pandemic relief funds.
   
• Strengthening or forming partnerships in the community that enabled programs to better meet the needs of youth and families, often in ways that had not been done before. Intermediaries partnered with entities from libraries and parks and recreation departments to municipal offices and school districts. The partnerships led to the creation of learning centers for children that provided enrichment and a place to participate in online schooling. Intermediaries were able to help ensure program providers had the space, technology, funding, and health supplies needed.
   
• Helping ensure that programs were able to serve those who needed support the most. Intermediaries assisted in ensuring that funding distribution to the needs of the youth being served. Examples of strategies included offering stipends to support older youth who otherwise would have had to work, and expanding reach to providers led by people of color and reducing barriers to funding for them.

The research points to the value of intermediaries in addressing key challenges, and the continued efforts role of intermediaries in four areas:

• Responding to the emerging needs of young people post-pandemic in areas such mental and emotional health
• Advocating to support and sustain practices that bolster equity in OST programs
• Making the most of partnerships to respond to the needs of families
• Advancing equity in OST systems

The report also concludes that the “experiences suggest possibilities for the important role they can play in supporting communities moving forward and in fostering better and more equitable services for young people in the future.”

To learn more and dig into all the data, read the full report, “Responding, Reimagining, Realizing: Out-of-School Time (OST) Coordination in a New Era.”