EDC Awarded National Center on Afterschool and Summer Enrichment

WALTHAM, MA | EDC has been selected by the Administration for Children and Families, Office of Child Care (OCC), to receive $10 million over five years to lead the new National Center on Afterschool and Summer Enrichment (NCASE). The goal of the new center is to ensure that low-income school-age children have increased access to high-quality afterschool and summer learning experiences that contribute to their overall development and academic achievement.

In guiding this effort, EDC will partner with two of the premier out-of-school time organizations—the National Institute on Out-of-School Time (NIOST) at Wellesley College and the National Summer Learning Association (NSLA)—as well as WRMA, Inc., current leader of OCC’s National Center on Child Care Subsidy Innovation and Accountability.

Working with a consortium of contributing organizations and subject matter experts from across the country, the new center will develop and provide materials and training to equip Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) state agencies to improve the quality and expand the supply of school-age care programs for the benefit of children and families. The new center will also collaborate with other national centers and out-of-school time advocates to achieve the broadest possible impact across communities.

“EDC has exceptional breadth and depth of experience serving the out-of-school time field through both publicly and privately funded initiatives at the national, regional, and local levels,” said Tony Streit, EDC senior project director, who will lead the new work. “We are honored to have this opportunity to launch a field-building initiative with national reach and enduring impact on the provision of school-age care.”

With this new award, EDC furthers its long-standing goal to promote innovation in out-of-school learning. EDC and the NCASE partners bring a wealth of expertise in experiential learning, professional development, continuous program improvement, and system building to ultimately help states and their child care providers succeed and thrive.

NCASE will serve all state, territory, and tribal CCDF grantees and their networks, including state and local education agencies, state school-age care networks, child care resource and referral agencies, and provider associations. Through these networks, NCASE will support the needs of program staff and parents of children in school-age care, expanding afterschool and summer enrichment services and enhancing the overall healthy development and success of the children served.

EDC designs, implements, and evaluates programs to improve education, health, and economic opportunity worldwide. Visit www.edc.org.