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MetLife Foundation has awarded The After-School Corporation (TASC) a grant of $410,000 to expand an exemplary Chicago high school internship program to New York and two additional cities that partner with TASC in the Collaborative for Building After-School Systems (CBASS).
With MetLife's generous support, TASC launched the After-School Apprenticeship Project in New York City this spring. Some 40 New York City high school students with a passion for sports are completing an intensive eight-week program of training in sports instruction and general work skills.
As they complete their three-days-a-week training, the high school students have the opportunity to receive paid summer internships as coaches and sports instructors working in New York City camps and other programs with younger children this summer. Some 100 New York City high school students will become interns through the Apprenticeship Project in the 2008-09 school year. Apprenticeship programs will also be launched in two cities that are part of the CBASS partnership of nonprofit after-school systems-building organizations.
The demonstration project is based on the high school apprenticeship program developed by After School Matters (ASM). ASM is a nonprofit organization that creates opportunities for teens in underserved Chicago communities. These teens explore an interest and develop workplace skills while earning a stipend with an arts, technology, science, sports or communications apprenticeship.
High school kids who participated in ASM apprenticeships were found to achieve higher graduation rates and school attendance, and to experience fewer course failures than similar students who did not participate. ASM's positive impact on kids was independently confirmed by researchers with Chapin Hall Center for Children at the University of Chicago. "We urgently need more ways to motivate high school kids to succeed in school all the way to graduation day," said Lucy N. Friedman, President of TASC."MetLife Foundation recognized that Chicago has found an approach that works with older students. They want to do work that really interests them, to get paid and to see the tangible benefits of getting an education. Through this MetLife initiative, we'll begin to understand how that approach can work for all kinds of kids in all kinds of cities.
"Our goal is to learn from this project how to use apprenticeships to inspire kids to build on their own successes and avoid the drop-out track," Friedman said.
In New York City, the first 40 student apprentices are being trained by two nonprofit agencies: the sports and fitness organization Asphalt Green in Manhattan, and the Samuel Field YM & YWHA in Queens.
In addition to New York and Chicago, CBASS partners operate in Baltimore, Boston, Providence, Washington, D.C. and Palm Beach County.
Contact: Susan Brenna; sbrenna@tascorp.org or (646) 943-8712
