What is a high-quality afterschool program? Research has demonstrated that youth benefit from high-quality afterschool programs. According to the National Afterschool Association report, Why Afterschool Quality Matters and the Utah Education Policy Center’s report, Afterschool Program Quality Improvement in Utah high-quality afterschool programs:
- Foster positive relationships between program participants and staff
- Offer a blend of academic and developmental skill-building activities
- Rely on data-driven best practices and standards
- Promote high levels of student engagement
- Provide appropriate levels of structure as well as opportunities for autonomy and choice
Year of Quality Improvement
To help you on your quality journey, we've put together the Year of Quality Improvement, which will help you map out self-assessments, set goals, and implement best practices throughout the year. It is a great resource to review and share with your team to show what a continuous improvement cycle can look like.
Self-Assessment and External Evaluation Tools
An essential factor in increasing program quality is determining how a program is implementing best practices. Use our Quality Assessment and Improvement Tool (Quality Tool) to evaluate your program or request an external observation from one of our Out-of-School Time Specialists.
Learn more about observations and how they are conducted.
Learn more about the Weikart Center's Program Quality Assessment Tools.
Quality Improvement Research
UAN partners with the Utah Education Policy Center to utilize program data and research to determine program outcomes and ultimately inform the best practices and standards we recommend.
