An after-school model: parks, schools and communities work together in Indianapolis. (Great Parks: Indy Parks).

According to the National League of Cities' Institute for Youth, Education and Families, an estimated 8 million school youth between the ages of 5 and 14 go home to an empty house on a regular basis. Many of these youth are left alone for as many as four hours a day. For cities and towns across America, these unsupervised hours after school mean both heightened risks and missed opportunities.

When Indianapolis, Ind., Mayor Bart Peterson took office three years ago, he brought with him a mandate to increase the number, size and quality of the city's after-school programs. Peterson wanted to link after-school programs with local public school learning standards, and then provide staff and services to keep schools open during those critical hours after 3:00 p.m. Peterson knew that, to succeed, his new after-school agenda would need support and assistance from schools, the community, the private sector and his parks department.

"Nationally, statistics show that most kids get into trouble in the two or three hours right after school ends," Peterson says. "That's why Indy Parks has been working so hard to facilitate and create safe, wholesome, fun and educational activities for our youth."

Indy Parks met the mayor's challenge with its own strategic initiative, and began working with area schools to develop year-round youth programming to expose students to expanded education and enrichment opportunities in a structured, safe setting. Indy Parks Director Joseph Wynns created a school outreach office within Indy Parks, and hired former teacher Don Aguilera to fill the division's top spot, empowering him to create unique school-driven programming while forging the creative partnerships and funding to make it happen.

"When Mayor Peterson took office, we were all on board with his initiatives, but we didn't have any staff or resources dedicated solely to school outreach efforts," says Joseph Wynns, Indy Parks and Recreation director. "It was essential to get someone like Don who had a background in education and also the vision of how to build upon our involvement so we could help reach those kids who were under served."

Programming For Success

Currently, the Indy Parks Office of School Outreach offers programming at 13 locations, serving 27 schools in four school districts, with approximately 1,125 students participating weekly. Indy Parks works with local schools to engage youth in academic assistance, enrichment activities, prevention, service learning, recreation and socialization. The overall goal of after-school programs is to provide an environment that positively encourages youth development. Objectives include providing a safe, caring and healthy supervised environment for youth during non-school hours; promoting the 40 developmental assets and character development; developing marketable and protective skills allowing youth to "move on" to a more productive life and resist involvement in self-destructive behaviors; and encouraging positive connections among family, school and community.

In each program, the school outreach staff works closely with school personnel to design programs that support K-12 educational curriculum. Indy Parks now has 23 school outreach and summer day camp programs that reach more than 5,300 Indianapolis youth each year.

In 2001, the office of school outreach began developing an after-school adventure program based on Barbara Lewis' What Do You Stand For: A Kid's Guide to Character. The program used adventure activities and nontraditional sports to emphasize character traits such as honesty, communication and accountability. It also contained an emphasis on inclusion. All activities were developed to meet the needs of Indianapolis' diverse after school population.

"When we started looking at areas where we could best supplement the schools' activities, we felt character education was the one area that had the longest ranging effects on all aspects of the students' lives," Aguilera says. "But when we started developing the program, we felt something was missing from the core of the curriculum. That something was the R.I.C.H.E.R. principles."

Character Discovery Challenge

In the summer of 2001, Indy Parks approached the Citizens Through Sports Alliance (CTSA) and the NCAA Hall of Champions about a partnership that would combine the CTSA's Stay in Bounds youth sportsmanship program for athletes and sports leagues with Aguilera's character enrichment-driven after-school program concept. Finding the programs to be an excellent match, Indy Parks assumed the lead role in developing a program based on the previous adventure-oriented outline and the CTSA's R.I.C.H.E.R. principle format, which adapts the six R.I.C.H.E.R. principles of the sportsmanship program (respect, integrity, caring, harmony, excellence and responsibility). The result was the Character Discovery Challenge (CDC), which is now an integral component of Indy Parks' day camp and after-school programs.

The goal of the Character Discovery Challenge is to help youth understand themselves better by figuring out what they stand for, and to encourage the attributes of good sportsmanship in all areas of their lives. Objectives begin with a self awareness of character traits, and build upon these traits to improve their life; improve their techniques for working in group and team settings; develop leadership skills and better identify positive role models within the community; express themselves in a nonrestrictive environment; and learn the importance of education and improve skills which will benefit them in the classroom.

Designed around the previously mentioned six R.I.C.H.E.R. principles, the Character Discovery Challenge program consists of six two-hour visits to each summer day camp site, with each visit focusing on one R.I.C.H.E.R. principle. The format for each visit includes skits that demonstrate the R.I.C.H.E.R. principles and that involve some type of hands-on involvement from the participants; large group initiative game/activity serve as icebreakers between child and facilitator as well as between child and child. Activities usually involve some amount of trust, which allows the participants to get comfortable with working with one another.

The program reached out to day camp youth throughout Indianapolis focusing on adventure and physical challenge rather than on traditional sports activities, and incorporating the Stay in Bounds R.I.C.H.E.R. principles into the activities. In its pilot summer, the CDC was presented to more than 3,000 youth. It was then adapted to meet the needs of after-school programs in several Indianapolis elementary and middle schools. Several teachers for classroom experiences have also requested the program.

"The Character Discovery Challenge is amazing," says Paula McConnell, extension educator for leadership and community development at Purdue University, who worked with the program in a school day camp last summer. "The children had loads of fun with equipment they haven't experienced, while hearing about and practicing personal values essential to a good quality of life."

Through its partnership with the NCAA and Citizenship Through Sports Alliance, Indy Parks has worked closely with 338 youth in seven of the city's 11 school districts. With early success, the Character Discovery Challenge now faces its own set of challenges in the future: how to remain fresh, developing new challenges and fine-tuning existing practices as youth around Indianapolis become familiar with the program. Also, once the R.I.C.H.E.R. principles become common words for CDC, the challenge will be to move past the awareness stage and into understanding where these principles can become a valued part of each child's daily life.

Indy Parks and Recreation and the Citizenship Through Sports Alliance and the NCAA are in the development stages of a nationally available Character Discovery Challenge program. Development of a manual and statewide trainings will kick off the pilot program this summer in eight Indiana cities. Through close analysis and feedback from the pilot sites this summer, the Character Discovery Challenge will most likely be available to school and park programs across the country in early 2004.

Park/School Programming: A Mixed Bag

Through its Character Discovery Challenge program and other after-school programs, Indy Parks reached more than 50,000 students in 2002. These partnerships with area schools have not only broadened our customer base, but also allowed the organization to grow to meet the needs of the changing urban landscape. Indy Parks' after-school programs have allowed the city to reach pockets of its population most in need of re-establishing neighborhood spirit and community values, previously underexposed and underserved by parks and recreation.

Indy Parks has begun marketing its after-school/day camp services to all area school corporations with great success. Below are a few examples of the variety of programming Indy Parks provides to Indianapolis' youth:

* In 2001, the Indianapolis Public Schools received a $5.4 million, three-year federal grant to establish 21st Century Community Learning Centers (CCLC) in its middle schools. The grant is the largest 21st CCLC grant in the country. This program, open to all youth in the community, provides high-quality experiences through academic achievement opportunities, anti-drug/anti-violence programs and other recreation and education activities in the after-school hours at eight local middle schools. Indy Parks, along with the local Boys and Girls Clubs, Community Centers of Indianapolis and the Urban Mission YMCA, share in the development and programming for these sites. Indy Parks currently operates and is in partnership at four of these middle schools.

* Also in 2001, the Indy Parks Office of School Outreach developed a pilot program called the Recreation Adventure Program (R.A.P.). Based on an extended school day model, the program incorporates three key components: academic assistance, character education and alcohol prevention. Two years later, R.A.P. is offered after school to 11 elementary schools and park-based sites. Seven R.A.P sites follow a four-day-a-week program, and four RAP sites follow a two-day-a week program.

* Recently, Indy Parks' school outreach staff have reached out to area Catholic high schools for assistance in providing staff and student mentors to several schools where after-school programming is already in place. The Help One Student to Succeed and Tutor Link programs have been contracted to assist with the development of tutoring and mentoring services. Currently, more than 175 students receive daily academic assistance service through Indy Parks programs.

* SWAP, or School With a Park, takes park rangers into local elementary schools each week to talk about bike safety, fire safety and environmental education. Through this outreach program, Indy Parks' rangers interacted with more than 13,000 young people in Indianapolis in 2002.

* Through a $19,000 grant from the Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust, Indy Parks has developed a new environmental education outreach program, with an emphasis on urban youth. The Hub Naturalist program takes the existing Environmental EDventures program into schools and communities currently underserved in the field of environmental education. The program is grade-specific and academic standards-based, and will become part of the after-school and day camp curriculums. All programs meet the Indiana State Science Achievements Standards and the Indiana Academic Standards for Science.

After-School Programming: A Blueprint For Success

All school outreach programming and services follow standards set by the National School-Age Care Alliance, and have led to the creation of a new coalition, After-school Coalition of Indianapolis. Through partnerships and collaborations with various Indianapolis youth service agencies, the mayor's office, state and federal departments of education, Indy Parks is working to address future sustainability issues, identifying best practices in program design, implementation, assessment and evaluation to better support the schools and the youth served by them.

"When we started working with schools to supplement their curriculum, we were not aware of the partnership opportunities available to us as a parks department," Aguilera says. "One of the most productive partnerships has been with Bridges to Success. This program helps individual schools develop site teams to promote the collaboration of schools, families and all sectors of the community to create much needed resources."

Here are a few of the things to think about when trying to establish thoughtful, high-quality after-school programming:

* Find out what existing social service programs are in each school, and determine where the greatest need for your services is.

* Identify partners in the community who can assist in this effort (staff, supplies, resources etc). It's almost impossible to do alone, and why should you? It's possible to provide greater quantity and quality of programs through partnerships.

* Find out what grants are out there on the state and federal levels to support school-park partnerships.

* Develop a formal partnership document that explicitly outlines the terms of your arrangement. Even if you're working with only a few schools, make sure this goes through the district's administration.

* Get local political figures on board. Educate your mayor, councilors, administrators, etc. on the importance of taking parks' services into the schools to provide valuable arts, environmental, recreation and character education to youth.

* Constantly work to increase involvement of school personnel and parents in both the school day and after-school programs of each child.

* Develop methods to refer students, parents and families to social services that they need beyond the scope of this program.

* Create marketing materials. These don't have to be fancy--just a simple brochure outlining your programs for teachers and parents. Use these materials to pass out to other schools to drum up interest.

* Don't be afraid to ask for help. Our school outreach coordinator, Don Aguilera, is a former teacher, so this was a natural segue for him.

* Have fun. This is a great way to put parks and recreation out front and add credibility to your programming and your department.

Facts from the National League of Cities 

Students who actively participated in after-school programs moved out of the lowest performing quartile on the SAT-9 reading test at almost three times the rate of the general student population; and moved out of the bottom quartile on the SAT-9 math test at almost twice the rate of the general student population.

Youth who attend high-quality program have better peer relations, emotional adjustment, conflict resolution skills, grades and conduct in school compared to their peers who aren't in after-school programs.

Researchers estimate that, in 2002, after-school programs for school-age youth met as little as 25 percent of the demand in some urban areas.

More than one-third of voters believe that the biggest problem facing youth today is that they're alone and unsupervised.

Students who spend one to four hours per week in extracurricular activities are 49 percent less likely to use drugs and 37 percent less likely to become teen parents than students who don't participate in extracurricular activities.

Kristen Weaver is public information officer for Indy Parks. For more information on Indy Parks' school outreach programming and services, or for tips on how to design your own school outreach programming, contact her at keweaver@indygov. org, or Don Aguilera, Indy Parks' school outreach manager, at daguiler@indygov. org. For more information on the Citizenship Through Sports Alliance and its Stay in Bounds sportsmanship initiatives, contact John Leavens, CTSA director, at [e-mail]. The author thanks the following for their help on this article: Leslie Clark, Indy Parks' administrator for community recreation; John Sponsel, coordinator of Indy Parks' after-school programs; and Don Aguilera, manager of Indy Parks' after-school programs.