CBASS

The Collaborative for Building After-School Systems (CBASS) is a partnership of TASC and eight other intermediary organizations that are building after-school systems within their home cities or regions. These partners have joined forces to help build after-school systems across the country and expand the availability of strong, effective after-school programs to more kids and families.

In addition to TASC, the CBASS partners include:

• After School Matters
• Baltimore's Safe and Sound Campaign
• The After-School Institute
• Boston After School and Beyond
• The DC Children and Youth Investment Trust Corporation
• Providence After-School Alliance
• Prime Time Palm Beach County
• Bay Area Partnership for Children and Youth

The CBASS partners support programs that serve more than 120,000 children and young people each year. Their collective accomplishments on behalf of kids provide them with a platform to influence after-school policy across the nation.

What We Do

Launched in 2006 with a founding grant from The Atlantic Philanthropies, CBASS works to influence and change public policy. Our aim is to establish after-school as part of the system of essential services that support children and youth nationwide. Our strategy is to blend advocacy with continuous advancement of practice in our home territories, and technical assistance to emerging systems. CBASS does the following:

• Makes the case for after-school to policy-makers, and for the value of establishing intermediaries to build systems
• Defines the policy challenges and common obstacles inherent in building after-school systems
• Brings leaders, practitioners and concerned parties together to propose policy recommendations and solutions
• Tests the feasibility of these recommendations by designing and piloting scalable and replicable models in CBASS cities
• Sends technical assistance teams to other jurisdictions to help them build their systems

Our Accomplishments

Advocacy

• Helped U.S. Conference of Mayors resolve to increase investments in full-day learning initiatives
• Hosted a national policy discussion on reforming schools through expanding learning time in partnership with Learning Point Associates
• Hosted a national discussion of A New Vision for Summer School, through a conference held in partnership with the National Center for Summer Learning, Council of Great City Schools and National League of Cities
• Developed strategies to better align high school after-school programs with education reform strategiesn
• Moved toward establishing standards of accountability by agreeing on core measures of success for young people, programs and systems

Practice

• Piloted a national expansion in New York, Boston and Providence of the After-School Apprenticeship Program, based on Chicago’s successful After School Matters internship model

Technical Assistance

• Designed a strategy for the Afterschool Partnership for Greater New Orleans to expand the availability and quality of after-school activities, based on the Prime Time Palm Beach County strategy
• TASC, in partnership with CBASS, produced a strategic after-school system plan for the Mayor and Superintendent of Schools of Rochester, New York based on the Providence After School Alliance AfterZone strategy