Develop the After-School Workforce

What We Do

More than 20,000 people in New York City work in after-school programs, and thousands more work with young people in school and community activities that operate during the school year, in summers and on weekends. They range from high school students in their first jobs to experienced managers.

	Contact info: To learn about training opportunities for staff of New York City after-school programs, contact Rosana Hirsch at rhirsch [at] tascorp.org. To learn more about continuing education and college courses, contact Chymeka Olfonse at colfonse [at] tascorp.org.

TASC helps talented New Yorkers build careers in after-school and youth work through Pathfinder, the site where youth workers, trainers and employers connect online and share job, educational and career opportunities.

Visitors to the site can search for jobs in after-school and youth programs, job training and educational opportunities. Organizations that operate youth programs can post job openings. Trainers in the field and educational institutions that offer relevant coursework can post information about upcoming trainings and courses.

Pathfinder is the first Web site of its kind, designed to help people map a course toward converting their jobs in after-school and youth programs into careers.

We also offer three-day continuing education courses in topics such as working with children with special needs and staff training workshops aligned with the NYSAN Program Quality Self-Assessment (QSA) Tool.

Why We Do It

More than 1 million Americans work in this field. For many, it is their first job. Most after-school workers are required to undergo extensive on-the-job training, gaining valuable skills they can apply to related careers, such as teaching. As large as this workforce is, however, after-school does not have a well-accepted system of formal instruction, set of core courses to prepare individuals, or a system for crediting workers for their training.

The after-school field has been overlooked as part of a national strategy to boost employment and create new career paths, perhaps because many positions are part-time and low-wage. Yet because workers receive grounding in child development and other competencies, they’ve already taken strong first steps toward many professions. Consider, for example, the potential among men of color, who are active in the after-school workforce but under-represented among certified teachers.

For more than a decade, TASC has provided and supported extensive training of after-school educators. More recently we’ve provided New York City youth workers with opportunities to earn undergraduate and graduate credits and professional certification.

To be effective, after-school programs must be staffed by people who are trained to work with rich curriculum and forge strong and supportive relationships with children. As they gain experience and undergo required training, after-school educators develop an understanding of youth development and the skills to engage students in curricula of many kinds, including arts, fitness, literacy and science.

We propose that policymakers, educators and leaders in this field collaborate to build an after-school professional development system that will lay down career paths and support staff members in their current practice. We support creating standardized, formal systems of instruction to help after-school educators gain credits and credentials that are linked to higher wages. Informal training should be sequenced, credited and aligned to this larger professional development system so staff members who participate in on-the-job training are rewarded.