Leading for Quality

This is a pivotal time for afterschool and out-of-school time (OST) programs in Boston and across Massachusetts. There is a growing recognition, substantiated by research, of the role OST plays in supporting the development of children and youth for success in education and in life. BOSTnet recently participated in the state’s After School and Out-of-School Time Commission, which elevated many of the issues affecting the field, including inconsistent funding, workforce development, and access. There is an increasing emphasis on program quality, the needs of children with disabilities, mental health supports, and services for older youth. We are beginning to find common ground in a youth development framework that covers the continuum from early care to school age and older youth programs. Advances in neuroscience research are also revealing that the developing brain has an enormous capacity to learn when nurtured. Moreover, there is a growing awareness of the importance of coordinating services to more children through more efficient systems. The question is no longer whether OST programs are necessary; instead, the question has shifted to how do we best develop and support high-quality programs and maintain a diversity of opportunities that serve the needs and interests of all children, youth and families.

Yet, it is clear challenges exist beyond the current economic crisis. As a recent report from the Wallace Foundation notes, “defining what a well-functioning, coordinated OST ‘system’ consists of – and how to plan, operate and sustain it – remains very much an early work in progress.” Although there is strong research that tells us what elements are important for a quality program, developing an infrastructure of funding and professional development to build and support quality programming remains elusive. There is also continued debate on how best to evaluate programs. While youth outcomes remain the standard benchmark for state, federal and private funders, many researchers and advocates in the field are pushing for more quality-based indicators. These could include elements such as strong leadership, intentional learning, staff development, family involvement, and participation rates. All of these indicators are linked to program quality. The thought is that if we evaluate programs on their ability to deliver quality at the point-of-service, we can stop holding them accountable for outcomes that are beyond their control. By focusing on quality, we have greater influence over the levers of change, including leadership development, staff practices, program culture (risk and innovation) and professional development systems.

The question of how best to evaluate OST programs is complicated by a lack of consensus about appropriate expectations for OST. When parents view afterschool as childcare they often utilize it inconsistently in response to periodic need. Moreover, reducing the basic function of afterschool to childcare excludes the role these programs play in healthy youth development. Viewing afterschool as an extension of the school day also limits the potential of the field. Focusing on academic achievement and structuring content in a school-like way can dilute the unique characteristics of afterschool that make it a valuable informal learning environment. It is also clear that a core asset of OST learning—fun—is often a missing ingredient not readily apparent to program staff. Fun is the foundation of sustained learning and engagement from early childhood onward. Fun supports an environment that nurtures inclusive, pro-social behaviors among children. Fun learning matters!

Ultimately, our goal is universal access to quality opportunities that build developmental assets in youth, including confidence, social-competence, positive identity, positive values and a commitment to learning and community. Research shows that children and youth who have a high level of these assets at any given time make better decisions, are engaged in their communities, are more resilient, and achieve more academically. For over twenty years, BOSTnet has worked to fulfill its mission to enhance the quality and increase the capacity of the out-of-school time field. However, we know that access to quality programs is not enough. As researchers are finding, positive youth outcomes are most directly related to participation in quality youth environments that are safe, supportive, interactive and engaging. Yet, we have very little data on participation rates or overall demand. Some research suggests that we really need to think of the long-term outcomes that are cumulative over time and linked to extended participation. As a recent study by Public/Private Ventures notes, short-term engagement has been shown to result in only short-term outcomes without any long-term impact on youth development. If quality and participation are the key drivers of outcomes, then we must address head-on the challenge of creating programming that appeals to children and youth of various ages with diverse interests.

What the Field Wants

In the fall of 2008, BOSTnet and the Trefler Foundation convened two focus groups comprised of established and emerging leaders of youth-serving organizations. These groups were brought together to reflect upon the opportunities and barriers to developing as effective leaders in the field. There was a general consensus that the field needs better, community-focused systems to build effective leaders and organizational managers. There was also consensus that many leaders already exist in communities but there are few opportunities for these leaders impact broader policy debates.

When asked to imagine what a leadership development system might look like, most focus group participants keyed in on three core strategies:

1. Youth Development Leader Training: Focus group participants were clear that there should be more opportunities to engage in formal training that builds organizational management skills. While there are many skill-building opportunities for nonprofit managers, participants were clear that cost and relevance to the OST sector is critical. Funders need to think strategically about how to leverage the many opportunities that exist for leadership development and make them both accessible and relevant for the field. There are also opportunities for private and public stakeholders, including agencies under Massachusetts’ Education Secretariat, Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development, and Department of Higher Education to expand current credential opportunities, such as the School Age Youth Development Credential (SAYD) run by Achieve Boston and the Professional Youth Worker Credential offered by Commonwealth Corporation’s Pathways to Success by Twenty-One (P-21) initiative. A parallel certificate in organizational management and leadership would lead toward tangible goals, such as college credit or a recognized director’s credential.

2. Formal mentor systems: Various leadership development programs, such as Boston University’s Institute for Nonprofit Management and Leadership link emerging leaders with more seasoned leaders from other organizations. The value of mentors cannot be overstated. In fact, most respondents to our leadership survey as well as participants in our focus groups noted the importance of mentors to their professional development. The collaborative nature of the field may lend itself to more formal systems of community-based mentors.

3. Informal peer-to-peer networking/learning communities: Learning from peers is often cited as the most influential input in an individual’s development as a professional. As a field, youth development excels at networking and connecting. There is value in creating informal opportunities for leaders of youth serving organizations to connect, discuss issues and problem solve in a collaborative, community-based way. For nearly 14 years BOSTnet has run monthly Directors’ Roundtables to provide a forum for networking and shared learning. These types of networks are becoming increasingly prevalent nationwide.

Leaders of youth serving organizations are asked to be many things—youth development experts, educators, relationship specialists, behaviorists, staff trainers, family engagement coordinators, youth outcome evaluators, fundraisers, and board managers. The growing professionalism of the field over the past decade has pushed these tasks to ever-higher levels of skill requirements without increases in compensation to support and develop staff effectively. To be truly transformative, OST leaders will need to move beyond running organizations and providing services to engage policymakers and funders in creating new roles. These roles may include developing the voice of the field to help shape the broader public dialogue around education, youth development and achievement; or aligning community-based assets, including schools, OST programs and health services to better address the needs of the “whole child.” This is critical in the current climate of education reform with so many choices being presented to communities—Expanded Learning Time, Pilot schools, community schools, Charter schools, service learning, etc.

It seems likely that the role of OST as a partner in education and youth development will continue to expand in the coming years, putting greater demands on programs, and program leaders, to provide high-quality learning and enrichment opportunities. How we address these challenges will have a long-term impact on the field, as well as on the children, youth and families we work with everyday.

Field Reflections on Leadership

As part of a larger study on leadership development in out-of-school time, BOSTnet partnered with the Trefler foundation to convene two small and informal focus groups of youth program leaders to get a better understanding of how these particular leaders viewed the opportunities and challenges to developing effective leaders, both in terms of personal skills and system supports. The sessions were facilitated by Roosevelt Smith, former executive director of Urban Dreams in Dorchester. A few of the more interesting findings are below:

Leadership vs. Management
Both focus groups acknowledge a distinction between management and leadership, but the line between the two was not always clear. Often when we talk about leadership we are really talking about management, the set of skills necessary to run an organization. For most people in our groups, management skills were primarily external and related to knowledge of finances, organizational development, strategic planning, relationship building, fundraising and marketing. Leadership, however, was more directly related to less tangible personal characteristics, such as values, vision, integrity, humility, ego, and the ability to reflect and inspire others. Effectiveness seems to come in a combination of management skills and leadership style that fits a particular context or environment. As one group member observed, “the lack of management skills can be overwhelming. People find themselves in jobs they can’t handle because they don’t have the skills, even though they may have some of the leadership aspects.” Yet, as another participant noted, “Not building relationships, not building trust, these are (gaps in) leadership, rather than management skills.” Despite these tensions, there seemed to be a sense that nonprofits have the promise of more collaborative models of leadership. Success is not linked to building and holding all the skills yourself, but in pulling people in who have the skills necessary to keep an organization focused on its mission and values. This approach requires robust internal systems of communication and staff development, as well as resources to recruit the right people.

Barriers to Effective Leadership Development
All of the participants in the focus groups recognized the barriers of low pay, high stress, limited support and unrealistic expectations. Uncertainty and operational tension leads to burnout and transitions up and down organizations. Various participants spoke candidly about the effects of limited resources on their work. “How do we lead when we don’t have enough money to build systems or hire the right people? Leadership gets co-opted by fear.” One offshoot of this is the increasing tendency to work in isolation, feeling as if your organization is under attack by competitors, fickle funders, or down budget cycles that will take away your resources. In a climate of fragmentation and resource scarcity, it is increasingly difficult to move systems forward and remain innovative. Organization leaders often cannot do the foundational work necessary to develop a proper understanding of community needs. As one participant observed, “Skill comes in saying I don’t know enough to launch this project, this vision. I need to know more about the community, my staff, my board . . . Writing a grant takes a lot of time, meeting with funders takes time and you don’t want people to come and see you when you’re not ready. It can squash your funding for years.” The groups also felt an inherent tension in advancing in their careers and taking on more management tasks while getting farther away from what connected them to the field in the first place—working with youth.

Generational Differences
There are clearly generational differences in how individuals approach leadership. For many “emerging leaders” there is a sense that more established leaders are change resistant. “The old guard obstructs, even when they realize that something is broken.” As a group, there was some consensus that younger people entering the field have been born into a value system that is more collaborative and participatory. There is a desire to share a place at the table and expand the dialogue, but for leaders with 10 or 20 years of experience it is hard to let go of hard won competencies and influence. One participant observed that we “can make competency assumptions based on titles, but this may not match up with the actual abilities of the person. Positions haven’t been well defined or people haven’t been well trained in their roles. The older generation developed into roles without clear definition, the newer generation needs to have a system in place to show them where they are going.” As another member of the group observed, “The ED job has changed and the older generation hasn’t kept up. They band-aid opportunities together and do not make the work appealing. Who would want to be an ED? Staff needs to see that the ED is getting the support needed.” Without the necessary support systems in place, fewer emerging leaders may see value in moving into defined leadership roles.

The full report on the Leadership Study will be available on the BOSTnet website on March 31st.

Professional Associations 101

This year, BOSTnet has taken on the role of Massachusetts affiliate for the National Afterschool Association. In this work, we will be expanding our network statewide to strengthen professional development options for OST providers in Massachusetts. While direct member services, including consistent information, resources, training opportunities, networking and conferences will constitute our bread-and-butter activities, there are other, less tangible activities.

In the development and advancement of any profession, the role of the professional association has been a leading force. Individually, there is little we can do to strenthen the identity, status or importance of the field. Professional associations provide a social function, bringing a community of practitioners together to elevate issues that extend beyond more narrow self-interests. Today, for instance, we assume a level of professional autonomy and academic freedom for university professors. At the turn of the 20th Century, however, these were luxuries few professors shared. Most were hired at will by university trusties who could easily dispatch of them if they lectured on topics or presented views deemed unworthy. It was not until the founding of the American Association of University Professors in 1915 that these educators build the social capital and political muscle to make academic freedom a reality. Might it be possible for the out-of-school time field to gain the same measure of academic freedom and professional autonomy to continue to shape our approach to informal education, creative expression and youth development?

While there are various types of advocacy and trade associations, professional associations tend to focus on three key areas:

1. The interests of its individual members (e.g. education, information, professional development, compensation, etc.).
2. The needs of the profession itself (e.g. definition, image, boundaries with other fields, performance standards, research, recruitment to the field, etc.).
3. The needs of the larger society (e.g. protection of the needs of individuals within the association's domain, ethics, relations with governments, universities, local communities, and relations with other fields, etc.).

Beyond providing member services, we want to talk openly about maintaining a clear and meaningful definition of our field. It is critical that practitioners, teachers, children and youth, families, employers, funders and policymakers have a common understanding of what constitutes the field. Only through shared understanding can there be shared expectations. It is important that we elevate the dialogue around how we define the field and its functional domains. This will help ensure that we dialogue effectively with other associations and institutions to find the common intersections of interest on which to build effective partnerships. Ultimately, this effort will improve opportunities for children and youth.

Leadership Development Survey

BOSTnet recently partnered with the Trefler Foundation to gather data on the current state of leadership development opportunities and the perceptions of the field on the opportunities and barriers to developing effective leaders in the field. The study combined a review of the literature on leadership development with a field survey and focus groups during the summer and fall of 2008. The research builds on the work of Roosevelt Smith, former Executive Director of Urban Dreams in Dorchester, who did preliminary field work the previous winter and spring.

In March, we will release the findings of the study as our next State of the Field Report. To get the discussion moving, however, we would like to provide some highlights from the survey.

BOSTnet released a survey on leadership development to about 550 practitioners across Massachusetts on August 6, 2008 and collected responses from 159 individuals. The majority of respondents represent large organizations. Nearly 40% work for organizations with an annual budget over $1 million, while organizations with budgets of $500,000 – 1 million and under $250,000 each accounted for 25% of the respondents. 36% of respondents work for programs with less than 10 employees; 30% work for programs with over 40 employees. Most respondents listed their primary programmatic activities as youth leadership development, academic support, arts & cultural enrichment and general child care, and the majority of respondents noted that their organizations ran programs that served children and youth from Kindergarten to High School. 40% of respondents have worked in their current position less than 3 years and over 50% were promoted into their current position within their organization, indicating some opportunity for upward mobility. Respondents with over 10 years of experience comprised 33% of the sample group. Of all the respondents, 45% classified themselves as “organizational leaders”—I have a senior management role in my organization, such as executive director, president or deputy director. The findings of this diverse group are interesting:

· When asked to identify opportunities that have been helpful in their professional development, nearly 70% selected professional conferences; 58% outside training or class work; and, 55% informal peer networks. Mentors and more formal networks also ranked high.
· The sample group clearly engaged in outside training: over 90% of respondents took part in a training course within the past 12 months, with over 60% taking part in more than 3 trainings.
· Over 50% of outside trainings were paid for by organizations and nearly 40% of internal trainings were provided by organizations free. 20% of respondents said they only attend free trainings; 18% split costs with their organization; and, 22% received scholarships to attend trainings.
· There is evidence that these trainings were more practice focused and not relevant to career advancement. 60% of respondents indicated that NONE of the trainings attended related directly to leadership or career advancement.
· Over 60% of respondents believe they have reached a career plateau in their current organizations with no opportunity for advancement. 15% of respondents are looking to advance within their organizations while 12% are looking to move up to a management role in another youth serving organization. Significantly, 11% aspire to leave the field.
· The majority of respondents (nearly 70%) feel supported by their organizations and nearly 60% believes their organization actively develops leaders from within.
· 77% of respondents feel that their organizational leadership role extends into their communities and nearly 85% actively build social networks with other community leaders.
· Asked to think about the kind of skills they need to develop to advance in their career, the majority of respondents identified fundraising, financial management and strategic planning. Many in the group also identified communications, board management, creative problem solving, marketing and evaluation.
· In selecting courses or trainings, the respondents said that quality of instruction, when and where the course takes place, the reputation of the organization providing training and the cost were the most important factors.
· Significantly, the sample group most often rated whether or not a course counts toward a degree or certificate as NOT IMPORTANT.
· In thinking about the settings most appropriate to leadership development, non-profit training organizations, professional associations, and colleges/universities rated highest. The least preferred settings included community colleges, for-profit training organizations, and online.

If you do not already recieve our State of the Field Reports, please visist www.bostnet.org to sign up.

Three Views on Leadership

The Wallace Foundation recently published a series of papers from nationally-recognized experts on the afterschool and out-of-school time fields--Strengthening Out-of-School Time Organizations: Three Views. The papers explore key organizational, administrative, and managerial obstacles facing OST programs today, and offer several potential solutions to address these obstacles. While each paper has its own focus, one organizational capacity is prominent whether we are talking organizational management, quality improvement, or system building--LEADERSHIP.

Lucy Friedman's paper, "A View from the Field: Helping Community Organizations Meet Capacity Challenges," presents the most straightforward view of leadership. Drawing on The After School Corporation's (TASC) experience, Friedman notes that well-run, effective community based organizations all have strong leaders who address problems quickly and utilize scarse resources in the most efficient way. Significantly, Friedman argues that these leaders tend to have afterschool at the center of their mission. This means that they lead from a mission-based perspective that elevates the value OST provides children and youth. These leaders are better partners, whether with schools or other community-based organizations, because they have a strong sense of purpose. Friedman argues that funders must provide additional administrative support in order for these leaders to maintain a focus on service quality.

Gil Noam, executive director of the Program for Education, Afterschool and Resiliency is even more explicit in outlining the role of leadership. For Noam, program support structures and leadership occupy one side of quality triangle model. Strong leaders, in effect, connect all the elements that are critical for quality OST programming, from activities and curriculum, to staff development and organizational management. Effective leadership is critical to sustain a level of quality programming that has been linked to positive youth outcomes. For Noam, investment in leadership development systems will leverage all other investments in quality and organizational stability.

Finally, Heather Weiss and Pricilla Little of the Harvard Family Research Project, look toward the transformative power of effective leaders in their article on "The Role of Foundations in Strengthening OST." Within the Weiss and Little model, OST nonprofits occupy a place within a larger ecological model around learning and development for children and youth. With the movement toward seamless, whole child services that blur the lines between school, OST, and community supports, OST leaders must be collaborative changemakers, building networks and connecting to a much broader range of community partners. Funders have a role to help OST leaders through network building, training, learning communities and other resources. Funders also need to use their economic and political weight to make sure OST leaders have a prominent place at the education reform table.

While Friedman and Noam both elevate the role of leader in well-functioning OST organizations, Weiss and Little take that inward view to the next level. Drawing on the book Forces for Good: The Six Practices of High Impact Nonprofits, Weiss and Little warn of the "social entrepreneurs trap." According to the authors, "This is the trap of expanding one's own program or model without leveraging expertise and other capacities to support 'field building, policy making and broader social change' in the community and country." Being a good organizational leaders is not enough. At this important point in the development of the OST sector, we need field leaders who can provide clarity, direction and a sense of purpose for our work.

Defining Leadership

BOSTnet recently convened two focus groups of both established and emerging "leaders" in youth-serving organizations in Boston. The groups were small and provided an opportunity to engage in open dialogue around leadership challenges and leadership development. The two groups were very different in their level of experience, but both groups struggled when we engaged in an exercise to define leadership.

Perhaps not surprisingly, discussions of leadership often breakdown into 1.) discussions of management skills needed to be an effective leader, and 2.) the more intangible personality characteristics seen in strong leaders. The first group includes skills such as: organizational development, strategic planning, fiscal management, board management, communication, fundraising, etc. The second group of characteristics included: reflection, engagement, values, vision, integrity, humility, trust, balance, and ego.

With a bifurcated list of defining elements on the board, the discussion shifted to the challenges these leaders face everyday in trying to build their skills as effective leader. Common challenges include: time, resources, people, trust, fear, power & influence, inflexibility, tradition vs. innovation, burn out, generational gap (lack of succession planning), diversity, compensation. I also must add one of my personal favorites of the day--an overall belief in some leaders that "I am the only one who can...."

Lacking in the discussion was a broader emphasis on leadership in the field. For most participants, leadership was a personal journey that seemed to be confined to their own relationships, their own development and the vitality of their organizations. In an age of limited resources this makes a lot of sense. Self preservation often wins the day. However, there is clearly a need for broader and more forceful leadership around issues affecting the entire OST field. This got me thinking that perhaps what is needed is not more training programs to address the skills needed by leaders to be effective managers, but more opportunities for people to be leaders. And by that, I mean more opportunities to create change. Because, ultimately, a leader must be someone who is an agent for change rather than a manager who can read a financial statement.