After School and Youth Development

California Tomorrow strengthens the after school and youth development arena by helping programs and field leaders to address equity and diversity challenges, and to build effective support systems for all young people.

After school and youth programs have a tremendous potential to help young people from all backgrounds and communities thrive, and to support them in developing the skills they need to grow and succeed. We are living in a time of huge expansion and definition in the after school field. This expansion is taking place in the context of increasing state and national diversity and continued academic, social and economic disparity.

Our Initiative on Equity, Access and Diversity in After School and Youth Programs provides practitioners, policymakers, and advocates with the information, inspiration, and tools necessary to ensure that our expanding array of programs actively and effectively serve the children and communities that most need them. This includes being sure that programs and services remain accessible to all, that they are responsive to diversity and contribute to alleviating academic and social disparities, and that they have the flexibility and vision to help build cross cultural skills and understandings for young people in the 21st century.

California Tomorrow’s after school and youth development work is based on a 3-year national research study of access, equity and diversity trends and promising practices. We published our Findings in Pursuing the Promise: Addressing Equity and Diversity in After School and Youth Programs (2003). In conjunction with this study, we have also developed a set of key equity and diversity principles for the after school field.

Building upon this foundation, our efforts in support of after school and youth programs include:

Conducting ongoing research and publishing reports that highlight the importance of effective educational, recreational, artistic, and cultural programs that build self-confidence, cross-cultural understanding, resiliency and youth leadership.
Developing and distributing toolkits to help providers, trainers, policymakers, funders and researchers assess and evaluate their work through a diversity and equity lens.
Providing customized technical assistance and training to spark deeper understanding of the diverse constituencies programs serve and to help providers and intermediaries create more inclusive and equitable after school environments.
Working in partnership on urgent policy and advocacy efforts, particularly in California, to push for the incorporation of equity and diversity concerns in the development of state and local policy and technical assistance agendas.

Please visit our Resources to learn more about our publications and toolkits related to the after school arena.