After school programs require ample funding
It’s three o’clock in the afternoon, do most Santa Monica parents know where their kids are?
From the time the final class bell rings to the moment working parents clock out for the day is considered the most vulnerable for adolescents and teenagers, an unsupervised period in the afternoon when kids can go from becoming no-risk to at-risk youth.
That’s where after-school programs — such as the Pico Youth & Family Center (PYFC) and City Hall-operated CREST — fall into the equation, providing supervision and enrichment for kids and keeping them off the street, putting working parents’ at ease.
One of the issues that programs like the PYFC, which relies on a series of grants from the city and St. John’s Health Center, faces is a steady stream of funding.
424,A recently published report by Santa Monica-based RAND Corporation found that of the programs geared toward at-risk youth, the ones with the proper amount of funding showed the strongest performance.
The study, by RAND sociologist Megan Beckett, who is involved in after-school care in the Los Angeles area, performed a cost and benefits analysis of various types of programs targeting the at-risk population, including after-school activities, intervention and summer learning programs. The study makes several suggestions for policymakers such as where additional investments could be made for youth programs, looking at whether money would be better utilized if funneled toward expanding existing services or creating new ones.
“Clearly there is a need [for after-school programs] given there are so many mothers working and a lot of single-parent families,” Beckett said last week. “One thing (policymakers) might think about in terms of these programs is use it as a vehicle to provide more targeted and expensive services to a small group of students.”
Programs like the PYFC serve approximately 180 teenagers from the Santa Monica and Venice area, many students coming from Santa Monica High School, which is located just one block away from the center’s headquarters on Pico Boulevard and Seventh Street.
The program operates on a $400,000 budget, funded mainly through city grants, according to Director Oscar de la Torre. The center works with mainly at-risk youth, providing services such as case management and counseling. The center also has its recording studio, which has produced several hip hop albums.
According to de la Torre, one of the things that pains the center is limited resources.
“We’ve taken some cuts and the state budget is going to make it harder for various after-school programs,” he said. “The one thing you won’t find is state grants, which might have been available in previous years.”
While the center has been able to sustain itself the past few years, its staff has been living off a salary that hasn’t seen a cost of living adjustment for quite some time, de la Torre added.
One of the more successful after-school programs in the city is CREST — Childcare Recreation Enrichment Sports Together — which is operated by City Hall in conjunction with the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District, whose elementary school sites each host the program every weekday. The program serves about 1,000 students in kindergarten through eighth grade. One of the key differences separating the CREST program from the rest is funding revenue — the program is fee-based.
“Even if we did see down the line, pressure on our general fund budget, we still have strong support from school communities and families for providing these programs,” Rebecca Sprigg, the director of CREST, said last week.
The CREST after-school program offers activities like youth sports, foreign language classes, yoga and math and science-related activities. Though the biggest funding stream for the program comes from City Hall, CREST receives bonds from Department of Education and the county.
Betty Macias, the program analyst for the Human Services Division at City Hall, said the program at Virginia Avenue Park is not childcare, and added that there are parenting classes available as well.
“Many studies show parent involvement has to do with academic success of children in schools so the park includes a parent education component,” Macias said.
Macias agreed the importance of having after-school programs is to have a continued source of funding.
“It’s difficult if a program doesn’t know year to year how much they have to work with,” she said.
Jump hedline: RAND study suggests policymakers invest money in existing after school programs
Suggested pullquote: “Clearly there is a need (for after school programs) given there are so many mothers working and a lot of single-parent families,”
Megan Beckett
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on March 12, 2008. Read the original PDF.