A place to call home
Subtitle: after-school programs for urban youth
By: Barton J. Hirsch ; with contributions by Nancy L. Deutsch.
Publisher: American Psychological Association; Teachers College Press
Published: 2006
Place of publication: Washington, DC; New York, NY
Language: eng
Number of pages: 163
Description: "A Place to Call Home: After-School Programs for Urban Youth provides important evidence that after-school programs work. In this work, author Barton J. Hirsch discusses his research conducted over a four-year period at six Boys & Girls Clubs located in low-income, predominantly minority, urban neighborhoods. Hirsch shows that the culture of the after-school center meets the needs of urban youth by drawing on and replicating positive features of the youth's familial environment and peer group. Staff first engage and then socialize youth toward positive identities by means of recreational activities and wide-ranging mentoring relationships. These club environments, repeatedly referred to as a "second home" by participating youth, help youth thrive even though formal programs often fail to reach their full potential. A Place to Call Home documents the crucial support that after-school programs provide to urban youth in their passage to adulthood, while also challenging the programs to rise to new levels of excellence. Clinical, community, and developmental psychologists as well as social workers, youth workers, and policymakers will discover much from Hirsch's analysis, abundant case illustrations, and verbatim field notes describing these successful after-school environments."--BOOK JACKET.