FAMILIES, SCHOOLS, AND COMMUNITY-BASED ORGANIZATIONS (CBO'S) are three of the main institutions in a child's life. Adults making up these institutions often make the biggest contributions to the healthy development of children. Unfortunately, schools, families, and CBOs often have difficulty working together and do not maximize their impact on children by coordinating their efforts. The Boston Community Learning Center (BCLC) initiative is founded on the theory that families, CBOs, and schools are most effective when they work together to holistically address the needs of children and youth. We believe that an initiative that brings together these three institutions will be able to serve more children, provide more comprehensive services, and boast more positive youth outcomes.

The mission of the BCLC initiative is to cultivate meaningful partnerships between schools, community-based organizations, and families. Through high-quality, comprehensive out-of-school time services that are aligned to local learning standards, the BCLC initiative seeks to foster academic success and healthy development in children and youth. The goals of the initiative are:

1. To create a successful infrastructure to support collaborations between schools, CBOs, and families.
2. To improve student academic achievement.
3. To promote healthy social, emotional, physical, and cultural growth of children and youth.
4. To foster more parent/caregiver involvement in schools.

BCLC sites represent center-based collaborations between schools, community-based organizations, and families. The purpose of the BCLC model is to create an infrastructure by which these different institutions can meet, share resources, identify gaps in services, collectively plan, and support each other, in order to provide comprehensive services for children. Each BCLC is a partnership between at least one school and a non-profit, community-based, service-providing agency. The non-profit, 501(c)(3) agency serves as the BCLC's fiscal agent and is an active contributor to the BCLC's programming and/or coordination.

In addition to any other programs or initiatives, a BCLC site must have an afterschool program that promotes the social, emotional, physical, and academic development of children and/or youth. Programming is balanced and inclusive of children of all learning and physical abilities. Children are afforded extended learning opportunities — such as academic enrichment, tutoring, or homework assistance — which directly connect to and reinforce the work done in the classroom during the school day. The activities that take place on a day-to-day basis at each of the BCLC sites will vary from site to site based on the needs of the students and the community being served. Each BCLC site is empowered to identify the needs of the communities they serve and to determine how to best maximize their resources and leverage new resources to meet those needs. In order to fulfill its mission, the BCLC initiative establishes the following infrastructure at each site:

1. A Committed Principal
2. A Resource Team that Meets Regularly
3. A Full-Time Coordinator
4. An "All Funds" Approach to Budgeting
5. Parent/Caregiver Involvement
6. Data Driven Programming

The BCLC model has demonstrated its ability to positively impact students. A brochure was produced to capture the success of the initiative. Under a rigorous evaluation, BCLCs have proven that they have impacted students socially, emotionally, and academically.

The BCLC Initiative is sponsored by the Massachusetts Department of Education.

View a listing of the Triumph Collaborative sites.