Universal Challenges, Specific Contexts: Insights from Looking Within and Across Different After-School Settings

The content for this chapter comes out of collaborative workshops at a two-day conference focused on after-school programs, hosted by Youth Nex at the University of Virginia in October of 2014. The goal of this paper is to look across these discussions, and highlight important strategies that apply across after-school programs, as well as discuss specific challenges that each type of program may face. The bulleted lists of opportunities and challenges that grew out of each workshop are also presented. Examples from the research literature are provided for each section. Focal questions include: How can looking at different types of after-school programs highlight specific challenges and opportunities? What does the lens of these specific programs show us about after-school programming in general?