Providing successful after school programming for BIPOC immigrant students

Format

Individual Presentation

First Presenter's Institution

Intercultural Community Center

First Presenter’s Email Address

emilyl@iccmaine.org

First Presenter's Brief Biography

Emily Loder is the current Youth Program Director at the Intercultural Community Center in Westbrook, Maine. Her previous experience includes non-profit consulting, travel planning and health care advocacy work with special populations. She has been involved in Girl Scouts for thirty-five years and has been employed with Girl Scout councils in Texas, Maine, Alaska and Montana.

Location

Session Three

Strand #1

Head: Academic Achievement & Leadership

Strand #2

Heart: Social & Emotional Skills

Relevance

This presentation is relevant to strand number one because it will address how the Intercultural Community Center's (ICC) programming directly helps to close the achievement gap for low performing BIPOC immigrant students.

This presentation is relevant to strand number two because it will address how ICC's programming provides students with social and emotional skills to function in school and in their community.

Brief Program Description

Does your after school program need a refresh? The Intercultural Community Center (ICC) has been serving low performing, BIPOC, immigrant students since 2014. Find out how we adjusted the program to be more student centered. Students are supported academically and are given the chance to just be a kid! Dive into data, spreadsheets and games to learn how to run a successful after school program.

Summary

The Intercultural Community Center (ICC) is a non-profit organization that is based in Westbrook, Maine that serves low-academic performing, BIPOC (black, indigenous, people of color), immigrant middle-school students. This program functions on a grant from the State of Maine. In order to support students academically, ICC has a functioning relationship with the Westbrook School Department. Thanks to the grant funding and the resources provided by the school department, ICC is able to offer a free all-inclusive program to 5th-8th grade students.

The youth program received a five-year grant from the State of Maine, effective 2019-2023. In fall of 2022, it was found that the program was not effectively meeting the requirements set forth by the state. After evaluation of the program in its entirety, changes were needed to better fulfill the grant guidelines.

The Youth Program Director revamped the program to better meet the goals set forth in the grant. The leadership team worked to determine whether staffing levels were appropriate to serve the expected number of students. Additional staff were hired to meet increased demand and adjustments were made to the day-to-day schedules. Staff worked to create policies that would allow for the program to remain functional should a change in leadership occur and in the face of staff turnover. A system was put in place for students to provide feedback so that staff could adjust their programming to better meet the needs of the students.

As a result of the program revamp, ICC has seen much better outcomes as far as student performance both academically and socially. By creating specific attainable goals, the youth program has made significant progress in reaching the goals set forth in our request for proposal (RFP), with excelling in some categories.

Evidence

ICC's afterschool (Power School) and summer program (Power Summer) is designed to address the specific needs of refugee, immigrant, and asylee youth. Our goal is to give our students the added support they need to be life-long learners and involved citizens by capitalizing on the many talents they already have. As a recipient of the 21st Century Community Learning Centers grant, we are able to offer daily curriculum centered around English Language Acquisition (ELA), STEAM (Science, Tech, Environment, Arts and Math) as well as access to qualified tutors for one-on-one academic support. Through group learning and growing, Power School allows students with similar lived experiences to connect and feel at home here in Westbrook, Maine.

Learning Objective 1

View an example of a well structured after school program.

Learning Objective 2

Understand strategies in reaching families of immigrant populations.

Learning Objective 3

Develop their own after school program using student feedback.

Presentation Year

2024

Start Date

3-4-2024 2:15 PM

End Date

3-4-2024 2:45 PM

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Mar 4th, 2:15 PM Mar 4th, 2:45 PM

Providing successful after school programming for BIPOC immigrant students

Session Three

Does your after school program need a refresh? The Intercultural Community Center (ICC) has been serving low performing, BIPOC, immigrant students since 2014. Find out how we adjusted the program to be more student centered. Students are supported academically and are given the chance to just be a kid! Dive into data, spreadsheets and games to learn how to run a successful after school program.