RFP 1180 School-Age Technical Assistance Resource Center

The New York State Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS) has released this request for proposals (RFP) to solicit competitive applications for the establishment of a statewide School-Age Technical Assistance Resource Center (SATARC). The purpose of the SATARC will be to provide ongoing, culturally and linguistically responsive support to all OCFS-funded after-school and out-of-school-time programs to improve the quality of their programs and, in turn, improve the academic, social, and emotional outcomes of their students. The SATARC will provide a variety of Technical Assistance (TA) resources and professional development activities to help OCFS-funded after-school and out-of-school-time programs meet their OCFS-contracted program outcomes and maximize the number of youth enrolling in and attending their program.

In line with the OCFS-funded after-school and out-of-school-time initiatives, all activities of the SATARC must reflect the following best practices to assist programs in educating students and promoting their development to become healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged:

• Utilize a positive youth development (PYD) approach.
• Incorporate the National Afterschool Alliance Key Principles for Expanding Learning.
• Encourage all programs to focus on student strengths, engage youth in their communities, and promote positive outcomes for youth.
• Be evidence-based and grounded in research.
• Incorporate continuing evaluation, identification, and implementation of improvement strategies for the work of the SATARC.
• Provide high-quality professional development, technical assistance, and support to OCFS-funded after-school and out-of-school-time programs.
• Assist programs in coordinating and aligning their after-school and out-of-school-time activities with their school district’s day programs, schedule, and practices.
• Establish organizational supports and policies that assure the SATARC’s success – i.e., leadership, broad participation of stakeholders, adequate time and resources to meet the SATARC’s responsibilities, and alignment with the requirements of approximately 175 OCFS-funded after-school and out-of-school-time programs.
• Support the involvement of families and communities as partners in the OCFS-funded after-school and out-of-school-time
• Ensure that TA and professional development products and services are developmentally, culturally, and linguistically responsive to the needs of the OCFS-funded after-school and out-of-school-time programs, the students, and their families and larger communities.

The SATARC will also have or be willing to obtain and maintain a statewide data collection and reporting system for OCFS-funded after-school and out-of-school-time programs to

• consistently and efficiently collect and report out program- and site-level data for use by program staff and management, SATARC staff, and OCFS;

• establish a consistent tool for data reporting by all OCFS-funded after-school and out-of-school-time programs;

• provide data, as defined in the scope of work, for OCFS to monitor state-level and OCFS-funded after-school and out-of-school-time programs’ quality and progress toward contracted outcomes; and

• provide management capabilities, as defined in the scope of work, for OCFS-funded after-school and out-of-school-time programs that would improve their capacity to monitor program quality and progress by increasing access to their own data, thereby increasing the ability of site and program staff to make data-driven programmatic decisions.

Please refer to the RFP document on the "Documents" tab for additional information and submission requirements.