All Stars Project INC.

All Stars Project Inc.'s innovate leadership training program, The Development School for Youth (DSY), was one of only seven programs across the country selected this year as a "Promising Practice in Afterschool." 

The Promising Practices in Afterschool system, funded by the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, and housed at the Academy for Educational Development's Center for Youth Development, has been researching the underlying efforts of afterschool programs across the country since the fall of 1999.  Practices this year were required to focus on the theme of "School Connectedness - The Afterschool Link to Learning" - innovative practices that integrate both in and out of school learning.  ASP's submission emphasized how the DSY, like ASP's other performance-based development programs, makes it possible for inner-city kids to learn both "that they have to" and "how to" navigate a broader range of social and cultural institutions, including school.

In the DSY, young people from the poorest communities work directly with corporate leaders to learn the "performance" of the professional world.  After a demanding series of workshops, most of them held in corporate settings and led by successful business leaders, the young people are guaranteed a paid summer internship at a leading corporation, where they can put their newly learned professional performances into practice.

The reviewers in the PPAS selection process found that the DSY was "an exemplary illustration of what and how afterschool programs should be running."  The DSY has now received formal recognition on the PPAS Listserv and will become a part of the PPAS database on the www.afterschool.org website, which averages 7,000 page views per month from afterschool practitioners in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and other global locations.

"This practice is a fantastic example of what afterschool programming should incorporate to best serve youth," said Bonnie Politz, Vice President and Director of AED's Center for Youth Development.

The AED's announcement observes that afterschool time is rapidly becoming a prime focus for parents, educators, funders, local elected officials, and community members and that time spent in successful afterschool activities can help close the achievement gap and provide valuable enrichment activities for young people.  The DSY, as confirmed by this award, is a prime example of a program utilizing practices that can be modeled across the country.