Julie Thomsen, director of partner relations at United WayChattanooga after-school programs need to do a better job of encouraging academic work, helping with that work and involving youth in their decision-making, according to the first-ever analysis of local programs.
Thirteen nonprofit groups and agencies, including Chattanooga Parks and Recreation, Goodwill, YMCA and Boy and Girl Scouts, chose to be put under the microscope for the three-part analysis by the Michigan-based David P. Weikart Center.
“Chattanooga has never had any standards for after-school programs and … (the programs) play a huge role in impacting youth,” said Julie Thomsen, director of partner relations at United Way. “Children spend 60 percent of their time in the community.”
At a time when many nonprofits have been cut to the bone because of a recession-triggered drop in contributions, training and data analysis have been hard to come by. And relying on volunteer staff can create inconsistency, officials said.
The pilot study and training opportunity, which has spanned more than 18 months and was funded in part by the Weikart Center, was a rare chance to examine what is going right and what is going wrong with outreach efforts, officials said.