Over 10 years, the researchers studied community-based organizations (CBO) for young people, eventually examining the work of approximately 120 youth-based organizations in 34 different cities. A look at these organizations and the young people they serve shows that CBOs offer a means of reaching at-risk youth, and that they can have a significant impact on the skills, attitudes, and experiences of young people. Surveys of CBO participants show that they express a sense of personal value, hopefulness, and agency far greater than peers in their communities, and even greater than the attitudes of youth growing up in more representative U.S. circumstances. Follow-up studies with more than 60 participants in youth CBOs show that the majority of these young people are firmly set on positive pathways as workers, parents, and community members. Research reveals that effective CBOs are intentional learning environments. CBOs cannot be effective, however, without support from community members and other community organizations. Long-term and short-term strategies to promote involvement in CBOs are outlined.

Report from Fight Crime: Invest in Kids that outlines the necessity for after-school programs and effectiveness in positive youth development.

Grant makers tend to be cautious about funding advocacy, and for good reason
— yet advocacy can play a crucial role in advancing a foundation’s mission.
In this guide, contributors explain that advocacy includes a lot of opportunities
to improve public policy through work that is well within the limits of the law.
Whether your purpose is to advance an idea, argue a position, or enrich the
policy debate, the guide offers resources and strategies for planning your
work, reaching your audience, assessing impact, and more. This guide highlights: what’s permissible for foundations, working with grantees who lobby, building a case, cultivating a constituency, and preparing for opposition.

While the evidence on the impact of after-school programs on academic and other outcomes is unclear, kids who do not attend at all - some 7 million unsupervised children - tend to have more academic and behavioral problems, reports MDRC in this one-page summary of the evaluation research.

Prevent Child Abuse America is building a national movement to create better lives for all our children. We transform knowledge into action through public awareness and communication, public policy, and community education, including our Healthy Families America home visitation program, now in operation at 415 sites across the nation.

The Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2009 (CHIPRA) enacted in February contains several provisions to reduce the harmful impact of Medicaid’s citizenship documentation requirement, which has caused many eligible citizen children to lose or be denied coverage since its 2006 enactment. By implementing these changes immediately, states can lighten the burden that the requirement imposes on otherwise eligible families.