Why Support BuildaBridge?
Healing. Hope. Transformation. Life skills. Training. Development. Leadership.
BuildaBridge has developed a personal and social change model that we implement in all our activities and programs that focus on these components and more. When you support BuildaBridge, you support the attainment of life skills, the healing from trauma, leadership capacity, the envisioning of a future and hope for tomorrow.
The five components that create quality after-school programs, according to Huang, D., & Dietel, R. (2011) in their article Making After School Programs Better, transcend not only BuildaBridge's out of school time programming, but also the training we provide to those in need. Findings from over 20 years of research are presented in their article, articulating the key components of effective after school programs.
So why should you support BuildaBridge? Because we provide effective after school programming and teach others to do the same, integrating arts into education, bringing hope and healing, and transforming the lives of the vulnerable and marginalized populations around the world. Huang, D., & Dietel, R. (2011) highlight five key components, illustrating these components' fusion as the best strategy for effective after school programming.
Huang and Dietel’s 5 key components from 20 years of research & BuildaBridge’s strategies for afterschool programming and training others to do the same
1. Goals are clear, rigorous, and supported across the program in structure and content. Funding is adequate to support goals.
BuildaBridge's 2012 goal is to provide hope and healing through the arts to the 250 homeless children in Philadelphia and 5,000 children worldwide through our alliances.
The primary goals for our programs, accomplished through the provision of creative arts experiences are:
a. Healing from trauma due to violence & abuse in order to break the cycle of violence;
b. Foster healthy development & hope for their future;
c. Develop academic, social, artistic-expressive skills and that foster spiritual and character development;
d. Allow development & rehearsal of skills for living as responsible, contributing and empathetic citizens; and
e. Train artists, youth workers, educators and congregational youth leaders in effective arts-based methods for community, family and child transformation.
2. Leadership is experienced, well-educated, has longevity at the current site, uses effective communications, sets high expectations, and has a bottoms-up management style.
The leadership staff (CEO, COO, Programs Administrator, Community Programs Coordinator, long-term volunteers) assess the needs of our constituencies semi-annually at gatherings or virtual meetings held especially for partner and alliance directors. Assessment of needs comes also from regular artist-teachers meetings, overseas training and camp evaluations, participants in training events, from classroom observations of children and from parent comments. Programs are revised accordingly, with revisions made by leadership staff and assessed against mission. New requests for programming or service are evaluated by staff against core mission and organizational capacity to deliver quality programming.
3. Staff is experienced, has longevity at current program, relates well to students, models high expectations, motivates and engages students, and works well with leaders, colleagues, and parents.
BuildaBridge utilizes trained professional and volunteer artists and clinical art therapists, 90% of whom have their Master’s Degree in art and/or education. Half of all current teaching artists have taught with BuildaBridge in the past and on average have five or more years’ experience working with or teaching children.
4. Program aligns to the day school, provides time for students to study, learn and practice; includes motivational activities, frequently uses technology, science and the arts to support youth development, student learning, and engagement.
Across all programs, the BuildaBridge Classroom model is both utilized and used to train other artists and teachers:
a. Artistic Goals: students learn new elements of artistic technique through instruction and personal exploration in the art form. These goals are consistent with and selected from the national/PAstate standards for arts education. Artistic goals develop technical, interpretive, connecting and contextual skills
b. Academic Goals: students expand their academic abilities through experiences requiring them to use reading, writing, critical thinking skills, new vocabulary, analytical skills, academic subject content, and knowledge of history, geography and culture based on national/PA state standards for these subject areas.
c. Social/Behavioral Goals: students develop social skills through classroom experiences that foster positive peer/mentor interactions and develop meaningful relationships. Social goals develop skills in relationship formation, listening, expression and conflict resolution skills
d. Inner Character Development Goals: students grow spiritually and morally as they are confronted with questions of identity, community, purpose, forgiveness, and service in their interactions with the arts. Character goals develop skills in community and family, living, belonging and identity, purpose, values clarification, forgiveness, empathy and environmental responsibility.
5. Evaluation uses both internal (formative) and external (summative) methods. Evaluative information and data accurately measure goals; results are applied to continuous program improvement.
BuildaBridge evaluates all programs by evaluating measured results against desired outcomes on a weekly, end of program/term, and yearly basis. BuildaBridge uses the following tools to gather evaluation information:
• Pre-post tests regarding knowledge and skills
• Weekly and cumulative attendance records
• Weekly class observational online assessments of progress on student attitudes, social skills, ability to follow directions, changes in acting-out or aggressive behaviors.
• Authentic assessments such as concluding performances and rating of arts skills
• Parent & student surveys and interviews
• Weekly & term summary outcomes reports from teachers calculating the percentage of students reaching desired outcomes and PA State Educational Standards
• Narrative stories of transformation and change from teachers, students, parents and personnel
• Teachers create measurable outcomes and pre-post knowledge and skills surveys for each class prior to the start of the session based on the following standardized BuildaBridge learning goals.
Huang, D., & Dietel, R. (2011). Making afterschool programs better. (CRESST Policy Brief). Los Angeles, CA: University of California. Read the full article here.