Supporting youth to improve community well-being through afterschool programs

I am starting 2025 with gratitude to be part of a team and a field that is committed to supporting young people on their journey through life. Many young people have a great desire to make the world a better place, both in the here and now, and in the future. But too often, they are left out of conversations that impact their lives and shape the future.

Young people bring unique perspectives, diverse lived experiences, and fresh ideas to the challenges they see and experience first-hand. When they’re empowered to harness their enthusiasm, imagination, and hunger for change, they become engaged citizens who are prepared to make the world a better place for all of us. Afterschool programs can ensure young people gain content knowledge and skills—and design opportunities to practice applying their expertise to tackle issues they care about in their communities.

Community-centered, youth-driven civic engagement in afterschool programs helps young people approach challenging problems methodically; and science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) skills are now essential to solve many of the challenges in the modern world. Moreover, making the connections between STEM and efforts to improve community well-being will help demonstrate the value and relevance of STEM fields, which can excite and draw youth to these fields and professions.

Intrigued by this idea but don’t quite know how to get started? The Afterschool Alliance’s STEM work has always been rooted in a desire to have the realities of practice and evidence inform our advocacy and policy work. In addition to collaborating with practitioners and researchers, we hold regular focus group discussions with young people to seek their ideas and input on policies and legislation that might impact them. Our Afterschool STEM Hub and Collective for Youth Empowerment in STEM & Society (CYESS) initiatives work in a complementary way to support the field and advance policies which ensure all young people have access to high-quality and meaningful STEM engagement opportunities. Here are some highlights to get you started:

• The CYESS partner blogs are a great way to check out how your colleagues in the field may be leveraging STEM for youth-led community improvement and civic engagement.
   
• The winter 2024 issue of our Afterschool STEM Quarterly Research Review (ASQRR) reviewed research showing the systemic impact youth can have when they get engaged in community challenges.
   
• Our report, STEM and Community Engagement in the Afterschool Environment, and preliminary dashboard can shed some light on the current landscape of afterschool STEM programs offering civic engagement opportunities for youth—and the strategies they're implementing. (And you can add your information to the dashboard to share with others if you are engaged in this work.)
   
• Our growing searchable Resource Database offers curriculum, professional development, and research at the intersection of STEM, civic engagement, and youth empowerment, designed for out-of-school time programs at all stages of their youth voice journey.

If you are working to support more civic engagement opportunities in afterschool programs, contact us to join our Community of Practice! We are so fortunate to be joined by dedicated partners in this space who are all committed to supporting youth to be active contributors to societal decision-making processes that impact their future.

We know that funding and supportive policies are critical. The Afterschool Alliance recently launched the Afterschool and Summer Program Funding Database, where you can filter for Civic Engagement, Community Service, and STEM to see what might fit your needs.

We are also working on a couple of key policy areas that are critical to advance this work:

• Advancing supportive policies for afterschool STEM practitioners to have the resources needed for professional development to offer high-quality, engaging, and relevant STEM learning experiences for all youth.
• Establishing and building support for a policy agenda focused on supportive structures in afterschool STEM for high school youth.

As a new Congress and a new Administration begin their work, we have already begun scheduling meetings with key staff to follow up on the policy priorities of the Afterschool STEM Hub described in the transition memo we sent to the incoming president’s team. 

If you have young people in your programs who are interested in advocating for community issues they care about, encourage them to contact us. We will shortly be launching a google classroom with training modules on how to work with the media, meet with policymakers, and engage with policies and laws that impact them.

When we empower youth to connect their STEM knowledge with opportunities to deeply engage in their communities, they can understand and address issues that matter in their own lives—and feel empowered and equipped to build a better future—often beyond what adults can imagine!  

I hope you will join us in this work! Stay tuned for many other resources we will be developing this year to help programs support youth to become more civically engaged and help with improving their communities. Keep up with our work via our websites and LinkedIn pages.

• The Afterschool STEM Hub is your resource for afterschool STEM policy and research: website and LinkedIn
• CYESS is your resource for program models, tools and peer-mentors to help you incorporate STEM into youth voice and civic engagement: website and LinkedIn