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Check out the resources below to see how United Ways have used their expertise to create action plans that improve the landscape of Out-of-School Time. Some of the resources can help your United Way better understand the process of creating action agendas, while others provide insight into the action agenda implementation stage.

 

featured resource: Valley of the Sun United Way & Arizona Center for Afterschool Excellence

VSUW and AzCASE, in partnership with community stakeholders, developed an actionable agenda in 2010 to strengthen the impact that Maricopa County's Out-of-School Time programs have on children and youth. They accomplished this goal over several months by engaging with a variety of stakeholders (policymakers, school administrators, local program directors, business leaders, parents, and young people). They formed four subcommittees: Access, Awareness, Coordination, and Quality. The subcommittees and meetings were structured to create, by the end of a series of meetings, one issue from each focus area with clearly defined opportunities, strategies and tactics, a resource map, and a timeline for implementation. Below is a synopsis, executive summary and the complete Maricopa County Afterschool Action Agenda.

To understand the planning and process tools Valley of the Sun United Way used, click on the links below to see examples of meeting agendas, presentations, and facilitator notes that the partnership developed:

 

additional united way examples

United Way of Massachusetts Bay and Merrimack Valley (UWMBMV) — Success for Life Planning and Mobilization Guide (2010)
This online toolkit was developed by Boston's UWMBMV based on their state-wide Success For Life work 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 of Massachusetts Bay and Merrimack Valley — Connecting School with Afterschools Initiative Results (2009)
This presentation reports on the successes of the Boston's Connecting School with Afterschool initiative. The initiative is grounded in findings from the 2005 Massachusetts After-School Research Study (MARS), which found that afterschool programs with stronger connections to schools had more engaging, challenging activities, higher staff engagement, and higher quality homework assistance.

United Way of Greater Richmond & Petersburg — Richmond's Out-of-School Time Action Agenda & Snapshot (2009)
Richmond's Actionable Agenda of Out-of-School Time sets forth helpful strategies to increase collaboration and joint management of OST programs, to engage regional and state policy makers in expanding programs as an economic development necessity, to improve the quality of programming and the tracking of results citywide, and to facilitate increased access to opportunities for young people and their parents.

United Way of Massachusetts Bay and Merrimack Valley — Connecting School and Afterschool: 15 Ways to Improve Partnerships (2008)
These cards are the result of an initiative where 8 greater Boston-based afterschool programs examined how children positively benefited from strong partnerships between their schools and afterschools. Each card outlines an activity with subsequent step-by-step action plans and includes helpful tips for afterschool program directors.

Boston - Tips for Connecting Schools and Afterschools (2008)
This is a list of tips for afterschool program directors who wish to align their afterschool programming with school curricula. It includes tips for relationship management, systems building, and alignment with curriculum.

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.

 

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Have a resource you want to share? See something you've created fitting well in the Toolkit?

Email your Out-of-School Time reports, publications, best practices, case studies, blog articles, videos, media mentions, etc. to submissions@unitedway.org. We will contact you if we are featuring your resource in the OST Toolkit.