RIASPA understands that high-quality professional development and technical assistance are the essential elements necessary to ensure that programs provide families with services of the highest caliber. RIASPA strongly believes that the success of an after school program depends greatly on the staff being trained in up-to-date practices related to youth development and child care provisions. Rhode Island is rich in resources which administer these types of trainings and workshops. We urge you to participate in one of the events listed on our calendar and to explore some of the services offered by the community organizations we have listed below.


LOCAL RESOURCES

Providence After School Alliance
www.mypasa.org
The Providence After School Alliance (PASA) is committed to supporting afterschool professionals and enrichment providers with the resources they need to provide the highest quality programming to Providence's youth. PASA offers excellent professional development opportunities on a multitude of subjects, including youth development and quality assessment tools. PASA, with community participation, has also developed a set of quality standards and indicators, which identify specific, observable activities that show consistent, high-quality programming. PASA is a key partner of RIASPA's in helping to professionalize our field.

RI Core Knowledge and Core Competencies for Afterschool and Youth Development Professionals
This document is now complete and ready for use across Rhode Island!

CHILDSPAN
www.childspan.net
CHILDSPAN offers statewide training and support to enhance the professional growth of individuals working in early care, school-age, and youth development programs. Training topics include leadership capacity to creative arts, parent and community engagement, and environmental education. Additionally, CHILDSPAN offers on-site quality program improvement through its Pathways to Quality program. (RIASPA utilized CHILDSPAN's help to create and coordinate its 2007 and 2008 Lights On Breakfast of Champions/Statewide Afterschool Conferences.)

The Rhode Island School-Age Child Care Association
www.rischoolagechildcare.org
The purpose of the Rhode Island School-Age Child Care Association is to support and enhance high-quality school-age child care and youth programs in Rhode Island through public awareness, advocacy, legislation, professional development, and networking opportunities.

New Roots Providence
www.newrootsprovidence.org
A program of The Providence Plan, New Roots Providence's purpose is to build the capacity of community- and faith-based organizations by providing free training (organizational, program, and fund development issues); offering grants and technical assistance; and encouraging communication among organizations, helping them work together to provide quality services and create lasting change.

Prevent Child Abuse RI
www.preventchildabuse-ri.org
Prevent Child Abuse RI hosts a variety of workshops for parents and administrators including Child Abuse and Neglect Indicators and Reporting Laws. They also hold workshops which train afterschool professionals to pick up on the signs of bullying and post-traumatic stress in children and youth.

Recycling for Rhode Island Education (RRIE)
www.rrie.org
RRIE focuses on providing non-toxic recycled materials to educators for at a low cost. RRIE offers a variety of workshops, some of which offer professional development credits, to afterschool professionals and teachers. These workshops provide assistance with how to make the most creative use of RRIE materials in an educational environment. All workshops take place at RRIE, which is located about 3/4 mile south of Roger Williams Park Zoo) in Providence. 

The Rhode Island Red Cross
www.riredcross.org
The RI Red Cross offers Adult and Child/Infant CPR training, First Aid training, Babysitter training, Sports Safety training, and Lifeguard training.

thrive: RI's Coordinated School Health Program
www.thriveri.org
thrive is Rhode Island’s Coordinated School Health Program (CSHP). A nine-component program developed in 1994 with funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), thrive was designed to prevent serious health problems and to improve educational outcomes. According to the CDC, schools by themselves cannot—and should not be expected to—address the nation's most serious health and social problems. For this reason, the CDC developed the coordinated school health program model to help communities and schools work together to more effectively address health issues. The CDC recently released reports highlighting the connections between health and academic achievement. As partners in thrive, the Rhode Island Departments of Education and Health work to build infrastructure supports with state, school, and community partners to help create safe, healthy, and nurturing schools that reduce barriers to learning.

BEST Initiative
http://www.youthworkcentral.org/best-initiative.html
The BEST Initiative works to improve youth workers' access to professional development opportunities and further build the field of youth work through a multi-faceted approach. RIASPA, in partnership with the Providence After School Alliance, will offer BEST trainings on a yearly basis. 

AFTERSCHOOL AND YOUTH DEVELOPMENT CERTIFICATE / CREDENTIAL / DEGREE PROGRAMS

Distance Learning Credential in After School Education Offered at Charter Oak State College
Charter Oak State College is pleased to offer a Credential in After School Education, developed in collaboration with the Connecticut After School Network and Connecticut Charts-a-Course. The course of study is intended to enhance program quality and offer career opportunities by establishing educational and experiential competency standards for specialists who care for children and youth, ages 5-14, outside of school hours. Credential requirements target teaching, management, and professional skills that enable afterschool personnel to create and maintain a safe, healthy learning environment; advance children and youth’s physical and intellectual competence; provide positive guidance and support for social and emotional development; establish productive relationships with families; and ensure a well-run purposeful program that is responsive to children and family needs. To meet the credential requirements, students take a sequence of four, three-credit online courses, each lasting eight weeks. In addition, there is a field experience practicum requirement of 240 hours of documented work in afterschool care as well as a submission of a professional resource file. For more information, visit the Charter Oak web site, or contact Carole Weisberg: cweisberg@charteroak.edu.

REGIONAL AND NATIONAL RESOURCES

The SEDL National Center for Quality Afterschool
www.sedl.org/afterschool/
The SEDL National Center for Quality Afterschool helps state education agencies and local practitioners develop high-quality, balanced programs that provide a safe and fun environment for academic enrichment as well as youth development activities.

The Forum for Youth Investment
www.forumfyi.org
The Forum for Youth Investment is a nonprofit, nonpartisan "action tank" dedicated to helping communities and the nation make sure all young people are Ready by 21®: ready for college, work, and life. Informed by rigorous research and practical experience, the Forum forges innovative ideas, strategies, and partners to strengthen solutions for young people and those who care about them. A trusted resource for policy makers, advocates, researchers, and program professionals, the Forum provides youth and adult leaders with the information, connections, and tools they need to create greater opportunities and outcomes for young people.

Connecting School and Afterschool Academies: 15 Ways to Improve Partnerships

This excellent set of bound cards, each highlighting a partnership strategy, were the result of a Boston-based initiative that examined how children and youth benefited from strong school/afterschool partnerships. Contact Lisa Packard at lpickard@supportunitedway.org for more information, or download PDF versions of the cards.

All Over the World: Global Literacy Curriculum for Summer Learning Programs
Travel the world in your summer program with this dynamic global literacy curriculum for upper elementary and middle school youth. This program is designed to engage youth in a variety of issues through the eyes of young people around the world. Participants will complete experiential learning activities, collaborative research, and an interactive culminating event. All Over the World teaches cultural sensitivity and provides young people with tools to increase their understanding of and curiosity about the world.

ELT: Expanding and Enriching Learning Time for All
New York’s The After-School Corporation (TASC) has published this new policy brief. It proposes that policy makers should support initiatives not only to extend the school day or year, but also to expand the way students learn through enrichments and diverse activities tailored to each school’s needs. The brief describes the core elements of the Expanded Learning Time / New York City initiative and discusses lessons learned from the first year of its implementation in 10 New York City schools.

Core Competencies for Afterschool Educators
A new guide to help programs and systems define the capabilities that are critical for afterschool educators committed to high-quality programs that produce positive participant outcomes. Funded by the C.S. Mott Foundation and developed by a working group of afterschool experts drawing from the field, the guide includes core competencies for afterschool educators and supervisors, and steps for designing a professional development system.

Afterschool Academies: Guidebook for Action
Professional development of staff is key to high-quality afterschool programming, but organizations are hard-pressed to create effective training that reaches across programs. Afterschool Academies: Guidebook for Action is designed to help afterschool leaders develop and launch their own intensive, cross-program, multi-site training institutes to address the fundamentals of afterschool education. Based on the Afterschool Academies model developed and presented by five afterschool organizations under a grant from the C.S. Mott Foundation, the Guide provides the Academies design basics, sample agendas and handouts, outlines of plenaries and breakout sessions, discussion-group guides, facilitators' materials, and planning tools.

The Finance Project offers monthly funding tips to youth programs, covering different financing strategies to help programs finance and sustain their work.