Providence After School Alliance

Providing resources and supports to build the capacity of after-school providers to deliver high-quality after-school programming is central to PASA’s work.

PASA’s quality improvement strategy is founded on quality standards and measurements developed by PASA and its community partners, with the guidance of national experts, to define what it means to be high quality and to know if we are reaching that goal.

Why Quality Improvement?

Prior to PASA’s inception, city leaders engaged in candid dialogue with youth and parents in Providence. These conversations painted a similar picture time and again: there were not enough quality after-school opportunities for the city’s youth. Faced with a choice of a bad program, or no program at all, a young person will choose no program. For youth who have no supervision and nothing to do after school, this can lead to unhealthy, even harmful choices such as alcohol and drug use, sexual activity and gang involvement.

Through a 2004 market research study, parents and youth voiced their concerns over the safety, quality and prevalence of after-school programming in Providence. It became clear that Providence’s middle school youth lacked consistent (three or more days a week) involvement in after-school programs. Something needed to be done to improve access to and quality of after-school programs in Providence. As a result, PASA made quality improvement a key component of its mission.

For more information on the quality improvement strategy, please contact:

Elizabeth Devaney, Deputy Director
401.490.9599 x103
edevaney@mypasa.org