Providers 

If you are providing in-person or virtual programming (on-demand activities or scheduled programming) please add them to the Out 2 Learn website by visiting our List Your Program page. Resources included on the Out 2 Learn website are also used to provide referrals to individuals who call 2-1-1 Texas/ United Way HELPLINE. Let’s leverage the power of 2-1-1 to get the word out to support our community. If you have questions about how to list your program, please contact Krystal Perez or Tiffany Echevarria. See program postings here!

Fundraising is changing rapidly. If you are relying on outdated approaches to securing funds for your organization, your success will be limited. Plan now to join us for these timely webinars designed to equip you with the information you need to improve your fundraising game in these uncertain times.

SESSION I: ARE YOU READY TO WRITE A GRANT?
Wednesday, August 12, 2020 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM

There are many important elements of grantwriting that should be in place before you take pen to paper or turn on your computer. This session will help you set the stage for a successful grantwriting process. You will learn how to:

• Evaluate your readiness
• Assess your capacity
• Draft your case for support
• Identify funding sources
• Establish basic relationships with potential funders
• Prepare your proposal outline
• Review your plan of action

Click here to register for Session I: Are You Ready To Write a Grant?

SESSION II: GRANTWRITING BASICS
Wednesday, August 19, 2020 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM

Once you have done your grantwriting homework, you will be well prepared to write a strong proposal. This session will provide a detailed analysis of the parts of your grant proposal along, with some tips and tricks used by seasoned grant writers to improve the likelihood of funding. You will learn:

• Role of philanthropy in grant funding
• Importance of a grantwriting system
• Detailed elements of a sound proposal
• Components of a realistic budget
• Role of evaluation
• Tips and tricks
• Next steps

Click here to register for Session II: Grantwriting Basics

RSVP for Out 2 Learn Quarterly: Tuesday, August 18, 2020 9:00 – 11:00 am

We will have presentations from out-of-school time Providers offering academic support for the start of the school year. Wesley Community Center and the YMCA will share their approach to this new support model.

We will also launch the Fall 2020 Quality Cycle, release Barrier Buster RFP and more!

Please RSVP for Quarterly. You will receive call information after you register.

Please visit Harris County Public Health for COVID-19 information and fact sheets. Documents and flyers for public health include:

• Fact Sheet (PDF)
• Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Frequently Asked Questions (PDF)
• Viruses Don’t Discriminate and Neither Should We (PDF)
• How Long Does COVID-19 Last On Surfaces?
• Business Guidance for Mitigating the Spread
• Reduce the Spread – How Face Masks Work
• NOTICE: FDA Recalls Hand Sanitizers
• How to Wear a Face Mask Properly
• Social Distancing Measures
• Testing for COVID-19

Resources are available in English, Spanish, Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese.

Autumn 2020 won’t look like any year on record, but that won’t stop us from shining a spotlight on afterschool. The 21st annual Lights On Afterschool is kicking off on October 22, 2020!

We’ll be changing things up this year by hosting a full week of virtual, in-person, and hybrid events and activities to help afterschool programs, and the children and families they serve, celebrate. From posters and giveaways to seven days of themes and lots of exciting partnerships — we’re going to make some digital space to share activities, bring in old and new OST friends, and offer strategies to have an incredible celebration of America’s afterschool programs and everything they do for our kids.

Will you join us for a Lights On Afterschool like none other?

I want to participate!

If you have any questions, please email us at [email protected].

READYNEWS: News & resources from the Forum and the field about collaborative work to get young people ready by 21.

In this Issue:

• Social and Emotional Learning
• Graduation
• Youth Voice
• School Reopening

Thriving, Robust Equity, and Transformative Learning & Development

The potential for thriving is universal, but so too is the existence of adversity. Young people can overcome adversities, but the ease of doing so is not equally shared. Opportunity structures – in schools, communities, and society – make it easier for some youth to avoid or buffer the impacts of adversity than others.

A new paper from the Readiness Projects partners, Thriving, Robust Equity, and Transformative Learning & Development, speaks to the needs of all youth, as every youth can benefit from robust approaches to thriving, equity, and learning. The cumulative impacts of inequity and trauma, however, propel the authors to call out the need to improve opportunity structures to address and eliminate the disadvantages created by current systems and practices. The report also calls out the need to eliminate the root causes of structural inequality in opportunities for youth to thrive across all domains. Throughout the paper, the authors:

• Introduce a formula and a rationale for addressing thriving, equity, and learning and development together that helps us better focus on actionable social factors.
• Summarize prevailing definitions of thriving, equity, and learning and development (and related terms).
• Take a deeper dive into the dimensions that contribute to individual and collective thriving.
• Offer powerful and aligned conceptualizations of thriving, equity, and learning and development.
• Describe the opportunities and conditions required to ensure that efforts to create “equitable educational outcomes” or “equitable learning and development opportunities” are as powerful and inclusive as possible.

Read the report.

Social and Emotional Learning:
Reunite, Renew, and Thrive: Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) Roadmap for Reopening Schools

The return to school this fall will be unlike any other. Students, families, educators, and community partners have all been impacted by a global pandemic, economic crisis, and the ongoing mobilization against systemic racism. Social and emotional learning has a powerful role to play in helping schools reopen in the fall in the face of these challenges. The Forum for Youth Investment is a proud collaborator on Reunite, Renew, and Thrive: SEL Roadmap for Reopening School

This new guidance provides school leaders with whole-school, anti-racist SEL strategies centered on relationships and built on the existing strengths of the school community to support students and adults as they return to school this fall.

Read more.

Graduation: New Toolkits from America’s Promise Alliance to Navigate Graduation Barriers

What does it take to help more young people – particularly those navigating the greatest barriers to graduation – graduate ready and well for whatever their futures hold? Communities and states in the GradNation campaign’s Acceleration Initiative help answer this question in a new case study series

The case studies highlight key themes and tangible examples from these community and statewide efforts to improve secondary school outcomes for specific groups of young people:

• Holistic Approaches to Helping Young People Succeed examines the complex barriers to success in school and life that many of today’s young people face and suggests strategies to support their holistic needs in an intentional, comprehensive way
• Building Responsive Pathways to Graduation and Beyond outlines strategies to create meaningful pathways that lead young people to viable career opportunities after they complete high school.
• Creating Effective Youth-Supporting Partnerships highlights the ways in which states and communities have leveraged strategic collaboration to align efforts to promote success for students facing the greatest obstacles to graduation

Learn more

Youth Voice: Our Thoughts, Our Words, Our Work: An Online Conversation with Young Thought Leaders and Activists in Minnesota’s Fight for Racial Equity

Every Hour Counts Online Discussion July 29, 2020 2:00-3:30 EDT

Our nation is facing two major turning points, the COVID-19 pandemic and our fight for meaningful change in racial inequities and injustice. How are youth leading during this time?

Join Youthprise, Minnesota, and Every Hour Counts for a forum on what Minnesota’s fight for racial equity looks like and how youth are leading. Youthprise’s Neese Parker, Youth Engagement Manager, and Shiranthi Goonathilaka, Board Member, will moderate a panel discussion of young activists and thought leaders making a difference in Minnesota and pushing for change in new and meaningful ways.

The conversation will focus on:

• Movement building and Black liberation organizing.
• School resource officer reform.
• Amplifying the actions being called for to end racial injustice and inequality.
• Highlighting opportunities for supporting youth leadership.
• National updates and next steps.

Register today.

School Reopening: Council of Chief State School Officers Releases Guidance on Reopening Schools State and local education leaders around the country are tackling the tremendous and urgent task of planning, launching, and sustaining a strong school year in the wake of COVID-19 related school closures. While school may look different this fall than what families are accustomed to, the focus remains the same: every student receives a high-quality education. This is true whether that means learning remotely, in person, or through a hybrid of the two. To support leaders as they strive for equity, are mindful of health and safety, and focus on teaching and learning, the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) created Restart and Recovery: Considerations for Teaching and Learning. This resource builds on other critical resources aligned with CCSSO’s Restart and Recovery Framework, which is designed to assist states as they work to reopen school buildings and recover student learning loss in the 2020-21 school year. Explore these resources.

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Please RSVP here. There will be Q&A at the end. Please send any questions beforehand to Raima Roy ([email protected]), and we will also allow for follow-up questions at the end of the webinar. Hi Census Partners, Please join us for our Webinar on Census & Redistricting on Thursday, July 30 at 2pm ET / 1pm CT/ 12pm MT / 11am PT / 8am HT. This webinar will focus on how on 2020 Census will impact redistricting. We will highlight the importance of redistricting to Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) communities and how they can engage on redistricting at the local level. This webinar will also cover the legal considerations for redistricting, how it has been used to create political clout in the Latino community, and how different communities of color are working together on redistricting efforts. Lastly, the webinar will discuss how the potential delay of census statutory deadlines will impact redistricting in the states and federal legislative efforts to address these issues.  Speakers Terry Ao Minnis is the senior director of the census and voting programs for Asian Americans Advancing Justice | AAJC. Terry co-chairs the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights’ Census Task Force and sat on the U.S. Department of Commerce’s 2010 Census Advisory Committee from 2002 through 2011, when the committee’s charter ran out. Terry has been counsel on numerous amicus briefs filed before the Supreme Court, including Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder, Arizona v. The InterTribal Council of Arizona, Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District Number One v. Holder, and Crawford v. Marion County Election Board. She was also counsel on a joint amicus brief with MALDEF in Bartlett vs. Strickland. She was one of the key leaders in campaigns on reauthorizing the Voting Rights Act in 2006 and Census 2010 and is actively engaged in addressing the Supreme Court’s decision in Shelby County v. Holder. Terry holds a law degree, cum laude, from American University’s Washington College of Law and a bachelor’s degree in economics at The University of Chicago. Steven Ochoa is Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund’s National Redistricting Coordinator and serves all of MALDEF’s redistricting needs, be it direct GIS mapping, community education, gathering and constructing relevant datasets, and racially polarized voting analysis. Having served MALDEF since 2011, Steven oversaw MALDEF’s 12 state redistricting program from 2011-2012, and personally conducted its western program in California, Arizona, and Nevada. This included crafting redistricting proposals for California State Legislature, California Congress, Arizona State Legislature, Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, Los Angeles, City, and LAUSD, among many other plans. He also participated in MALDEF’s 2001-2002 redistricting efforts. A Los Angeles native, Steven was trained at the UC Berkeley Statewide Database in the use of Census and election data and GIS mapping. He earned a Bachelors in Political Science from UC Berkeley in 2000 and a Master’s in Public Policy from the University of Michigan in 2006. Julia Marks is a staff attorney with the Voting Rights and Census program at Asian Americans Advancing Justice – ALC. Before joining Advancing Justice – ALC, she clerked for the Hon. Keith P. Ellison of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. Julia previously litigated civil rights class actions and other high-impact cases at Disability Rights Advocates to expand access to public- and private-sector services. She received her J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, where she participated in the California Asylum Representation Clinic, the East Bay Community Law Center’s Neighborhood Justice Clinic, and the Berkeley Journal of International Law. Karuna Ramachandran is the Director of Statewide Partnerships at Asian Americans Advancing Justice – Atlanta. Karuna brings over ten years of experience in nonprofit work to her position. She has developed programs spanning youth development, public health and health advocacy, environmental justice and organizational development. Prior to joining Advancing Justice-Atlanta, Karuna directed community-based public health programs aimed to reduce health disparities of Georgia’s rapidly growing AANHPI and refugee communities. She worked to create lines of service that improve access to healthcare while pushing alongside partner advocates to defend the Affordable Care Act and improve understanding and implementation of provisions designed to improve health equity. Karuna’s extensive experience integrating programs to organizational practice add value to Advancing Justice-Atlanta as we grow the justice movement in Georgia and the greater Southeast. Justin Valas is the Policy Director at Asian Americans Advancing Justice | Chicago. He brings a decade of experience in community building, grassroots organizing, and leading legislative policy change around issues of economic justice, health equity, and immigrant rights. Most recently, Justin served as the Director of Health Equity at the Asian Pacific Development Center in Aurora, Colorado. Additionally, he was a founding member of Asian Communities Together, organizing Asian Americans in Colorado around issues of racial justice. Previously, while with the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition, he led the legislative efforts to repeal the state’s “Show Me Your Papers” law. He was also founding member of the NC DREAM Team, which protected undocumented community members from deportation in North Carolina. Justin earned his BA from Knox College. Please RSVP here. There will be Q&A at the end. Please send any questions beforehand to Raima Roy ([email protected]), and we will also allow for follow-up questions at the end of the webinar. If you missed our previous Webinar on Junkipedia Disinformation Tool & Updated Census Bureau Communication Plan please check out the recording here. Hope you can join us!