Best Starts for Kids Out-of-School Time Update!
by School's Out Washington | | Posted under
It’s an exciting time for the Best Starts for Kids Out-of-School Time team at SOWA as grantees have launched their programs and we are fully underway supporting all the incredible organizations serving youth in King County!
As a refresher, in the grantmaking process, applicants were offered options regarding their implementation timing, and the levels of quality supports that would be provided by SOWA, as they developed their plans for BSK funded out-of-school-time programming. The grantees are organized into what we call Phase One and Phase Two.
- Phase One programs are those that are new to Youth Program Quality Standards and/or those creating new or greatly expanded programming or partnerships, which will require time and support to plan and implement. These programs received funding in February, 2018 and will work with SOWA for approximately nine months, to prepare for OST program implementation in September, 2018.
- Phase Two programs will be those which don’t require as much preparation and planning time. These programs also received funding in February 2018, and will began implementation in April, 2018.
This past spring, our Phase Two programs kicked off and went through their initial round of training, assessments, and quality improvement coaching. Those running summer programs also received assessments, and we’ve successfully seen all of our grantees through their first reporting season.
Phase One programs are launching now, and are attending their YPQI Initiative Kickoff and initial Social Emotional Learning (SEL) trainings this month. Fall assessment season will soon be upon us! With the start of the school year, our entire cohort of organizations funded through the BSK Out-of-School Time investment will be delivering services.
To celebrate the start of all of our grantees’ programs, we’ve profiled each organization. Check out all of the great work that SOWA is supporting!
For a comprehensive overview of this investment, with more information on how SOWA partnered with King County and sought community input to develop the funding model which includes the People of Color-Led and Place-Based Partnership strategies, take a moment to reiew our initial Implementation Plan.