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Description
The Illinois After-School Partnership is a project co-chaired by the Illinois
Department of Human Services and the Illinois State Board of Education.
The Illinois Center for Violence Prevention serves as the intermediary
organization. The Illinois After-School Partnership is working with
child care, social service and youth development providers, educators, parents
and youth, business representatives, policy makers and advocates to create
a state-wide infrastructure that builds, supports and sustains high quality
out-of-school-time programs for all interested school-age children and youth
in Illinois.
History
This effort began in 2001 when the Illinois General Assembly appointed the
Illinois After-School Initiative Task Force. The General Assembly
authorized the Task Force to assess the status of out-of-school-time services
in Illinois and to develop a plan to coordinate these services so that out-of-school-time
programs can eventually be made available to all interested children and
youth. The Task Force recommended a series of steps to strengthen
the network of out-of-school-time programs across the state. These
recommendations were published in the 2002 Task Force Report and were in
the areas of State-level Interagency Collaboration, Capacity Building, Community
Collaboration, Evaluation and Funding.
Current Activities
The After-school Initiative has now expanded into a Partnership to accomplish
these goals:
- Implement the recommendations of the Illinois After-School Initiative Task Force
- Build Relationships with the Private Sector to Increase their support of out-of-School time programs
- Involve Parents and Youth in building and strengthening the out-of-school-time system
The Full Partnership is made up of a full range of stakeholders in
out-of-school-time in the state of Illinois. The Full Partnership meets to get project updates, discuss issues
that arise across the work of the Partnership and to discuss strategies and resources, and to reach consensus
on Partnership work products.
Three Workgroups have been established to implement the recommendations
and are taking concrete steps to improve the ability of programs to deliver quality services.
- Capacity Building Work Group
- Policy Work Group
- Outcomes Work Group
For more information about the Illinois After-School Partnership or to join a
workgroup, please contact
Jennifer Becker-Mouhcine at (312) 986-9200 or
jbeckermouhcine@icvp.org.
You can also visit their website at www.icvp.org.
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