Understanding the “How” of Quality Improvement: Lessons from the Rhode Island Program Quality Intervention

Introduction

Over the past 10 years, afterschool and youth development programming has moved from providing childcare for working parents to being an integral component of the learning day, supporting the academic, social, and emotional development of young people (C. S. Mott Foundation, 2007; Durlak & Weissberg, 2007). An important part of that transition has been a growing emphasis on improving program quality. Many communities around the country have begun to create site-level continuous improvement models (Wilson-Ahlstrom & Yohalem, 2008; Yohalem & Wilson-Ahlstrom, 2009). Aligned performance measures help program administrators evaluate the quality of young people’s experience and give them a framework for improvement.