PASE Program Update | October 2020
Dear PASE family, friends, and supporters,
It’s hard to believe that we are entering month six of remote work! I joined PASE this Spring as Chief Program Officer, right as we were all transitioning to remote work. Despite having spent my entire career in non-profit and educational spaces, the past few months have felt like nothing I’ve experienced before. But despite the upheaval around us, PASE’s focus remains constant: strengthening afterschool agencies through training and management support, connecting diverse stakeholders to develop a shared understanding of our challenges, priorities, and best practices, and elevating the needs of front line staff.
Much of our work this Spring was focused on responding to the COVID response needs of the field. As we start a new season, we wanted to share a brief update about the work PASE has accomplished, and the projects we have planned.
- We held 12 Take A Break with PASE sessions; weekly opportunities to reconnect as a field and share learnings, successes, and best practices with topics ranging from mindfulness to academic interventions to safety protocols.
- We held a series of workshops on Trauma informed programming including processing grief, trauma informed care and the arts, and supporting staff through times of crisis.
- We hosted 12 college students through our Summer Teaching Fellows program who completed remote educational summer internships at four afterschool sites.
- We organized and executed our annual summer conference – this year virtually. Our keynote speaker was Nikole Hannah-Jones in conversation with Dr. Eddie Fergus. The conference was attended by over 500 participants and featured workshops focused on developing partnerships, safely planning for the Fall, building our virtual facilitation toolboxes, and diversifying our funding base among other discussions.
- Since the Spring, we have worked with over 4,000 participants in our virtual sessions.
This Fall, we are focused on building the resiliency and capacity of the afterschool field, leaders, and educators. We would like to share some of the programming on the horizon:
- Investing in Leadership: Our Emerging Leaders Program this year will be focused on alumni of our leadership programs. Given the turbulent times, we want to invest in the leadership and resiliency of our alumni and provide them with the tools and the network to navigate these times. Our PASE/LANDIT women’s leadership program had a record number of applications last cycle, and we will be opening the new cohort earlier. Keep an eye out for applications by early November.
- Investing in Organizational Capacity: We are working with the Mayor’s Office to Prevent Gun Violence to offer a series of workshops on government grant writing and offering technical assistance for more intensive support. Continuing our work with the Department of Youth and Community Development (DYCD), we will host another cohort focused on fund development as well as a series of workshops open to all DYCD contracted organizations. We are also working with organizations seeking to sustain their STEM programming. Applications for the STEM cohort will be released early-winter.
- Investing in Knowledge Needed Now: We are launching a workshop series focusing on Effective Youth Practices in a Virtual World. Registration is currently open for the first session on Building Your Virtual Toolbox, and keep an eye out for future topics including Building a Classroom Culture, and Parent and Caregiver Engagement in a Virtual World. We are also building a regular forums series focused on timely topics and a slightly more in-depth offering. These forums will launch this month, and topics will include Trauma Informed Care, Academic Interventions, and Building and Sustaining Quality.
Thank you for the work you do every day, and for the investment you make in the youth of New York City. We hope to see you at a PASE event soon, and wish you health, energy and success as we enter the fall.
Warmly,
Shreya Malena-Sannon
