Age range

New York City Department of Youth and Community Development
156 William Street
New York, NY 10038

Website: http://www.fcny.org/portal.php/syd; www.nyc.gov/html/dycd/html/

services-afterschool-beacon.html

Mission/Goals: Beacon's mission is to adhere to youth development principles and a high level of quality community involvement. They seek to provide activities that establish opportunities for empowerment and skill building, development of character and positive social norms, and the integration of family, school and community supports.

Source: www.nyc.gov/html/dycd/html/

services-afterschool-beacon.html

Notes: There are currently more than 80 Beacons located in public school buildings throughout New York City. The programs address five core areas: Academic Enhancement, Career Awareness/School to Work Transition, Life Skills, Community Building, and Recreation.

Type of Evaluation: Outcomes Monitoring.

Objective: To examine how the Beacon initiative affected youth and their parents, the host school, and the surrounding communities.

Impact/Outcome Findings:  The majority of youth indicated that they took advantage of challenging activities at Beacons and that they had fun in these activities. Sites with higher youth-development quality, as defined by YDI, were more likely to have youth with positive outcomes. These outcomes included youth feeling better about themselves at the Beacon, believing that youth of all races and ethnicities were valued at the Beacon, perceiving that staff had high expectations for their behavior and performance, and reporting that the Beacon helped them learn leadership skills. Youth at these sites with higher youth-development quality youth
were also less likely to report they had cut classes, hit others or hurt them, deliberately damaged property, stolen money or other property, and been in a fight. All of these differences were statistically significant after controlling for various external factors.