New York City Department of Education (DOE), in collaboration with Cooper-Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, is hosting the 2017 Cover Design Competition. The competition encourages participants to reflect on their lives as public school students in New York City and express their ideas artistically in the form of a cover design. The winning designs will be featured on DOE school directories, which are distributed to thousands of students and their families across New York City. This competition is an opportunity for students to showcase their artistic talents and be recognized for their creativity. The competition is open to all students currently enrolled in a New York City public high school. Students may enter on their own or through their teachers. See Official Entry Guidelines for full details. Submissions are due December 16, 2016.

In honor of the 100th anniversary of John F. Kennedy's birth, the 2017 Profile in Courage Essay Contest is featuring a first-place prize of $20,000, cash awards for the top 25 essays, and a special contest topic. Essays must describe an act of political courage by a US elected official who served during or after 1917, the year John F. Kennedy was born. The contest is open to US high school students (grades 9-12) attending public, private, parochial, or home schools as well as US students under the age of twenty enrolled in a high school correspondence/GED program. Contest deadline is January 4, 2017.

The NYC Department of Youth and Community Development (DYCD) has released spring 2017 scholarship applications for both Family Development Credential (FDC) programs - FDC for frontline staff and FDC Leaders for supervisors, managers, and directors. The frontline staff FDC program provides them with the skills and competencies they need to empower families and the FDC program for leaders is based on family development principles, with an emphasis on empowerment-based leadership. Classes begin March 3, 2017. Applications must be received no later than January 8, 2017. For further program information, contact CB-FDC@dycd.nyc.gov or visit the DYCD website.

Information Age Publishing (IAP) is launching a seminal and timely series on current issues in out-of-school time. The new series will promote and disseminate original theoretical and empirical research and promising practices to further grow and strengthen the out-of-school time field. The series welcomes ideas for book topics that bring a multi-disciplinary approach and illuminate diverse and timely issues in the field. IAP is looking for individuals and/or editorial teams comprised of people who bring diverse perspectives. The call for book topics is open-ended, and welcomes fresh, innovative ideas from scholars and practitioners alike. Deadline for submission is January 31, 2017. Learn more about the call for book ideas here.

American Youth Policy Forum is hosting a webinar, Leveraging Youth Voice and Advocacy to Support Pathways to Success, on December 7, 2016 from 3:30 pm - 4:45 pm ET. This webinar will feature the voices of young people and highlight programs that are effectively leveraging youth voice and advocacy to promote policy change and support youth development, putting youth on pathways to success in education, work, and civic life. Speakers will include representatives from United Teen Equality Center, Foster Youth in Action, and The Mockingbird Society. Register to participate.

According to the Afterschool Alliance's latest report, The Impact of Afterschool STEM: Examples from the Field Afterschool, programs can support students’ success in STEM in a multitude of ways—by helping them become interested and engaged, develop tangible STEM skills, and begin to see themselves as potential contributors to the STEM enterprise. This report compiles evaluation data from 15 strong afterschool programs—diverse in size, structure, and approach—providing a snapshot of the impact that afterschool programs across the U.S. are having on youth today.