BOSTnet Initiatives
BOSTnet's initiatives revolve around three areas:
- Quality Environments for Youth
- Lead to Opportunities for Youth with Disabilities (LOYD)
- The Out-of-School Time Landscape
Quality Environments for Youth provides programs direct training and technical service helping them create a culture of positive behavior, create an environment inclusive for diverse needs, families, and communities, and provide support on assessment, evaluation, and data collection making programs more accountable for funders and policy makers.
Lead to Opportunities for Youth with Disabilities (LOYD) is a six-year initiative that provides resources for programs to create programs inclusive of children and youth with special needs. In the past six years, this initiative provided programs with financial support to increase capacity as well as obtain resources. This last year, LOYD culminated in the All Means All Conference.
Out-of-School Time Landscape is an on-going project to collect data on services and create user-friendly ways parents and funders can access where programs area as well as identify gaps in service. Our activities include the 2008-2009 Guide to Boston's Before and After School Programs publication, the e-newsletter the BUZZ, and State of the Field reports.
Quality Environments for Youth
Check back for outline of 2008 - 2009 Quality Environments for Youth initiatives. Read about our work with Quality Environments, Advocacy, and Policy work on our unofficial blog .
LOYD:
The Lead to Opportunities for Youth with Disabilities (LOYD) Initiative is aimed at strengthening the capacity of community agencies to create or expand programming that is inclusive of children and youth with disabilities. LOYD provides programs with resources, such as our All Means All 2008 Conference.
The LOYD initiative, formerly of Disability Law Center, Inc., became a project of BOSTnet in 2002. Over its five-year history, LOYD has worked to strengthen the capacity of children and youth serving agencies by providing over 40 grant awards in the amount of $5,000 to $50,000, to selected organizations interested in improving and enhancing their inclusion efforts issuing almost 1 million dollars for programs.
The Out-of-School Time Landscape:BOSTnet's Guide to Boston's Before and After School Programs is a comprehensive list of Boston’s Out-of-School-Time programs available in print and online on our homepage at www.bostnet.org. BOSTnet has published the Guide annually for 16 years. The Guide (both print version and online version) are used by parents, programs, and social service agencies alike. 5000 copies are distributed to every Boston Public Library, Parent Information Center and Public School. Please click here for information on the BOSTnet Guide. To receive a copy of our printed guide, please contact us at info@bostnet.org.
BOSTnet's Comprehensive Database holds a wide range of program information on over 450 programs, including program enrollment capacity, curriculum focus, types of disabilities served within the program, access to transportation services, and program fees. In each edition of our e-newsletter, the BUZZ, BOSTnet releases a summary of our data. Please click here for more information on BOSTnet Data. To be added to the BUZZ list, please send an email to buzz@bostnet.org
Mapping the Landscape for families, before and after-school program providers, funders and policymakers. BOSTnet has started to create maps of these services within our Guide to Boston’s Before and After School Programs 2006-2007 edition and on our website. This map was created to enable families to 1-locate programs in the neighborhoods in which they live or work, 2-find programs that cater to particular interests or special needs and 3-locate other community resources vital to “out-of-school time” such as public transportation and organizations serving families who have children with disabilities. We also have maps of "accessible" programs throughout the city, these sites provide access to individuals using wheelchairs for physical mobility.
