YEF Institute Launches Interactive Afterschool Website for City Leaders
by Michael Karpman
 City officials are invited to take advantage of a new website with a searchable database of resources and city examples on afterschool programs.
The Afterschool Policy Advisors Network (APAN) Online Community website (http://apan.nlc.org) is an interactive, online resource center to help municipal leaders find, share and discuss knowledge on how to build citywide systems of high-quality out-of-school time programs. With support from The Wallace Foundation, NLC’s Institute for Youth, Education, and Families (YEF Institute) hosts this password-protected website for the 500 municipal leaders who are active members of APAN.
Mayors, city council members and senior municipal staff who are interested in expanding afterschool opportunities for children and youth can join APAN and start using the new website by registering at www.nlc.org/iyef.
The YEF Institute will also sponsor a conference call on Wednesday, May 21, at 2:00 p.m. Eastern Time to showcase how city officials can use the APAN Online Community to improve their afterschool efforts.
Search for and Contribute Information
Municipal officials can use http://apan.nlc.org to search an interactive library of afterschool resources by topic, theme or city size through an easy-to-use folder structure. These folders sort resources by category, including Evaluation and Research, Funding, Quality, Partnerships, Program Administration and Program Content. Additional folders highlight specific examples from small, midsized and large cities. The site also has a powerful search tool to find information within the community.
However, users of the site are not limited to searching for information — they can contribute their own knowledge as well. The online community tool allows members to upload and edit resources from their own cities and towns to share with other local officials. Just like Wikipedia, the more information contributed by members of the community, the more each member benefits.
Network with Other Cities
The APAN Online Community allows member city officials to communicate with each other through discussion forums, listservs, live chats and network e-mails. Users can also find city officials from neighboring or similar cities through a member directory. In addition, each member can see who else is in the community at any given time, as well as set preferences for whether or how often to receive alerts about new publications and network discussions. The online community will serve as one of many YEF Institute tools to connect municipal officials with practical data and information and to facilitate ongoing cross-city exchange of promising practices for afterschool.
Details: To join APAN, register for the APAN Online Community website or sign up for the May 21 conference call, please visit www.nlc.org/iyef. If you have questions, please contact Michael Karpman at (202) 626-3072 or karpman@nlc.org.
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