Aligning Out-of-School Time in D.C. Using Data-Driven Decision Making

• In Event: Nontraditional Approaches to Improving Extended Learning Time for D.C. Older Youth

Abstract

The District of Columbia offers a wide range of programs for youth aged 5-24, but there is currently no comprehensive system to monitor the engagement, success, progress, and outcomes related to these initiatives. For instance, a young person may have several distinct risk factors such as poverty, hunger, lack of student engagement, physical, mental and health concerns, and academic challenges that require services and supports from several District agencies or non-profits. Over the past two years, the DC Trust has tracked the programs of 30 government agencies and 150 community-based organizations within the Washington, DC youth development community. Some of the key agencies supporting over 140,000 youth locally include, but are not limited to: DC Public Schools (DCPS) – Education; DC Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) – Afterschool and Summer Programming; DC Department of Employment Services (DOES) – Workforce Development; DC Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services (DYRS) – Adjudicated Youth; DC Children and Family Services Administration (CFSA) – Child Welfare; DC Departments of Health/Mental Health/Human Services (DOH/DMH/DHS) – Health and Social Services; One City Youth Initiative (OCYI) – Coordinated Youth Programming; and the Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) – Standards.

The DC Trust worked with youth development stakeholders across various sectors in the city to create a set of citywide youth outcomes. District agencies and community-based organizations have aligned their programs and services to these outcomes to create a common framework for assessing their impact on the growth and development of youth. This second paper serves more as an exploratory paper, addressing the use of the database to make decisions about future interventions, to measure progress, and overall to serve the participants better.

The theoretical framework address Urie Broffenbrenner’s Ecological theory (1086), and the resiliency theory, that addresses risk factors, protective factors, and resilient outcomes. In this paper, the presenters also address some of the assets of the program, which include not only the ability to make data based decisions, but also real-time data, and the ability to do friendly comparative and descriptive statistics.

Methods: This paper is more exploratory than it is outcome based, and it addresses some of the most common challenges with the system, attempts to optimize not only the data but also results, and the ability to coordinate data among several entities and organizations.

Data Sources: Data sources include a unique database built (DC Insight), and data from all of the collaborating DC organizations that provide and track services for youth.

Results: The success in creating the DC Insight database is the first result, and this includes initial trial runs. The scholarly study of the work is that success of the database will enable the different stakeholders to make better data driven decisions for students in need. Another scholarly significance of the study is that this database can help to conduct multilinear analyses and eventually isolate both mediating and moderating variables that influence student resilience.

Author

• Kimberly Barnette, Delta Decisions of DC