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Suggested Citation:"6 Future Directions for Policy, Practice, and Research." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Shaping Summertime Experiences: Opportunities to Promote Healthy Development and Well-Being for Children and Youth. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25546.
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6

Future Directions for Policy, Practice, and Research

OVERALL CONCLUSIONS FOR POLICY, PRACTICE, AND RESEARCH

The committee has reached seven overall conclusions related to the target outcome domains from our review of the literature and the conclusions reached in Chapters 2 through 5. These cross-cutting conclusions serve as the basis for the committee’s nine recommendations related to policy, practice, and research, detailed further below. The seven overall conclusions are these:

CONCLUSION 6-1: Summertime experiences can affect academic, health, social and emotional, and safety outcomes for children and youth, with those in disadvantaged communities at risk for worse outcomes.

CONCLUSION 6-2: There are opportunities for systems and agents to implement innovative new programs and extend effective practices that already exist during the school year into the summer period.

CONCLUSION 6-3: The assets and priorities of communities must be central to the planning, development, design, and evaluation of summertime programs and services.

CONCLUSION 6-4: All children have basic developmental needs, including the need for adequate nutrition and the need for safety, that must be met as a critical precondition for summer programs and services.

Suggested Citation:"6 Future Directions for Policy, Practice, and Research." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Shaping Summertime Experiences: Opportunities to Promote Healthy Development and Well-Being for Children and Youth. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25546.
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CONCLUSION 6-5: Children and youth who live in less advantageous circumstances (e.g., with poverty or food insecurity or in neighborhoods with high incidence of violence, crime, or over-policing) face numerous obstacles in having their needs met across the four developmental domains and in accessing positive summer experiences; these subpopulations require a special focus in the committee’s recommendations.

CONCLUSION 6-6: Although there is a robust research literature documenting the impact of summer on academic developmental trajectories, research on the impact of summer on other developmental domains examined by the committee is scarce, leaving many questions about best practices unanswered. This is a priority research need.

CONCLUSION 6-7: Existing data systems do not adequately capture seasonal differences in outcomes in the four domains examined by the committee, making it difficult to fully understand the summertime experiences of children and youth.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Improving Planning, Administration, and Coordination

RECOMMENDATION 1: Local governments (e.g., county, city) should establish a quality management system (QMS)1 to identify and provide positive developmental summertime experiences for children and youth, experiences that advance academic learning, improve health and well-being, and promote safety and social and emotional development. The QMS process should be specific to summertime and continuous, and it should contain the following six components:

  1. a systematic assessment of existing summertime programs and services;
  2. a systematic community needs assessment that is inclusive of parents and youth to assess summertime programming and services;
  3. the identification and prioritization of gaps between current and needed programs and services;
  4. the development and implementation of plans to address prioritized needs from the summertime community needs assessment;
  5. the development and measurement of key process indicators and relevant outcomes; and
  6. a continuous quality improvement process.

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1 See International Organization for Standardization (2019a, 2019b).

Suggested Citation:"6 Future Directions for Policy, Practice, and Research." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Shaping Summertime Experiences: Opportunities to Promote Healthy Development and Well-Being for Children and Youth. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25546.
×

The academic school year is organized and structured to measure, evaluate, and achieve well-defined goals, and school systems use it to integrate supplemental activities such as nutrition, safety, and behavioral health. All the activities that make up the academic school year are attached to agents with ownership and accountability, including school systems, government agencies, and suppliers. In contrast, summertime often lacks designated ownership and planning, administration, and coordination among sectors and agents, resulting in stand-alone, siloed programs and services addressing independently determined needs. This approach sub-optimizes the matching of programs and services to community priorities, the standardization of measurement, and continuous improvements, and in general it undercuts the total potential impact of summertime experiences, programing, and services as investments in children and youth.

Local government has authority in many sectors through its legislative, regulatory, public safety, and health functions. It is best positioned to convene families, youth, community leaders, sectors, and the agents operating in summertime programs and services to establish jointly a system for improving outcomes from summertime activities for children and youth. A QMS is a well-established, formalized system that documents processes, procedures, and responsibilities for achieving quality policies and objectives, which can help localities coordinate activities in order to meet objectives and continuously improve effectiveness and efficiency (American Society for Quality, 2019). Local governments, the business sector, and the nonprofit sector already have exposure to and experience using QMS, making it a familiar strategy that can be adapted and applied to help improve summertime experiences. Local Governments can co-create plans for assessing needs, eliminating ineffective practices, prioritizing the needs of disadvantaged children and youth, planning and implementing programs, and measuring, evaluating, and continuously improving summertime experiences for children and youth in their communities.

Supporting Conclusions for This Recommendation

CONCLUSION 2-1: Existing summertime programs and services for children and youth are provided by multiple sectors and agents; however, decisions by these sectors and agents on what experiences to provide are made independently and typically with limited or no coordination to optimize the total impact of summertime experiences for children and youth.

CONCLUSION 2-2: Improving the accessibility and availability of summer programs by reducing barriers to equitable participation (e.g., cost, geography, special needs) could help to address the unmet demand that families have for quality summer experiences for their children and improve access to summer nutrition programs.

Suggested Citation:"6 Future Directions for Policy, Practice, and Research." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Shaping Summertime Experiences: Opportunities to Promote Healthy Development and Well-Being for Children and Youth. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25546.
×

CONCLUSION 2-3: There is limited comprehensive data on how children and youth spend their summer. Systematic assessments of community needs for summertime experiences and longitudinal studies of unstructured and structured summertime experiences (both in terms of what is being provided as well as what is needed) are needed to identify opportunity gaps and priorities across diverse populations of children and youth.

CONCLUSION 3-2: More research is needed to understand the full impact of summertime experiences on outcomes and trajectories related to child and youth safety, pro- and anti-social, risk-taking, and delinquency-related behaviors; mental health; and social and emotional development. This need is especially great for underserved populations, which have been underrepresented in the research literature to date, including children who are American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, immigrant, migrant and refugee, homeless, child welfare or justice system involved, and LGBTQ+, as well as those with special health care or developmental needs.

CONCLUSION 4-1: Summer programs can be designed to promote children’s and youth’s safety, physical and mental health, social and emotional development, and academic learning, but they must be targeted to the needs of participants, have programming linked to desired outcomes, be of sufficient duration, and promote strong attendance.

CONCLUSION 4-4: Research is needed on the impact of summer programs on the developmental trajectories of children and youth over the course of multiple years. The current literature examines one-off programs but does not address the effect of the multiple experiences children and youth have over the course of their childhood.

CONCLUSION 5-1: Communities and families have existing resources and infrastructure that can be leveraged through partnerships to increase access to summer programs for children and youth.

CONCLUSION 6-3: The assets and priorities of communities must be central to the planning, development, design, and evaluation of summertime programs and services.

RECOMMENDATION 2: Foundations and other philanthropic organizations should augment their funding, technology, and in-kind supports to intermediaries that are creating systems, platforms, and communication vehicles for—and promoting promising and effective practices focused on—summertime experiences for children and youth.

Suggested Citation:"6 Future Directions for Policy, Practice, and Research." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Shaping Summertime Experiences: Opportunities to Promote Healthy Development and Well-Being for Children and Youth. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25546.
×

The work of intermediaries has been catalyzed and supported largely by foundations and other philanthropic organizations, which provide the funding that allows them to ensure that resources are available to organizations operating summer programs at the local, state, and national levels. Intermediaries play a unique role in out-of-school time systems, which lack the formal organizational structures that public education enjoys, such as school districts. Intermediaries, with foundation and philanthropic support, have evolved to provide the systemic infrastructure, expertise in programmatic areas of interest, and knowledge of community contexts that helps facilitate resource deployment for out-of-school time systems, and as such, summertime experiences. The committee would be remiss to overlook the critical roles intermediaries play in convening, funding, and creating systems of quality implementation and improvement, in aligning professional learning systems for out-of-school time professionals, in evaluation, and in some cases, in advocacy.

Supporting Conclusions for This Recommendation

CONCLUSION 2-7: Intermediaries play an important role in connecting public, private, and nonprofit entities with shared goals, improving efficiencies within partnerships, and supporting children and youth during the summer.

CONCLUSION 2-8: In many communities, intermediaries serve as the central organizing, leadership, fundraising, measurement, and support systems for groups of afterschool, summer, and other youth- and family-serving programs.

CONCLUSION 6-2: There are opportunities for systems and agents to implement innovative new programs and extend effective practices that already exist during the school year into the summer period.

Improving Availability, Access, and Equity

RECOMMENDATION 3: Governors and mayors should convene local public and private employers to leverage and support employer policies, practices, and programs to expand the capacity of and access to quality summertime experiences for children and youth, particularly those in underserved communities.

Employers (i.e., the business community) can offer municipal leaders several potential avenues for cooperative work to expand access to quality summertime experiences for children and youth. These include innovative

Suggested Citation:"6 Future Directions for Policy, Practice, and Research." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Shaping Summertime Experiences: Opportunities to Promote Healthy Development and Well-Being for Children and Youth. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25546.
×

public-private partnerships, corporate social responsibility programming, summer employment for adolescents, and human resource policies designed to give their own employees better “work-life balance” (see Chapter 2).

Governments and the business community have a long history of forming public-private partnerships (PPPs) to address issues of common interest and importance, such as leveraging private real estate for public schools (Utt, 2001) and reinventing education in technology through P-TECH (Partnership for Technology Early College High School) (IBM Institute for Business Value, 2018). Corporate social responsibility programs are charged with making a positive social impact in communities, and to date they have been successfully used to provide summertime and academic-year enrichment to youth, particularly in the STEM domain (see Chapter 2, Box 2-5). Human resources policies on flexible work schedules, employee volunteer programs, and work from home or early release during the summer months can all provide opportunities for greater parental involvement or supervision in the summertime experiences of children and youth at home or in their communities.

Supporting Conclusions for This Recommendation

CONCLUSION 2-2: Improving the accessibility and availability of summer programs by reducing barriers to equitable participation (e.g., cost, geography, special needs) could help to address the unmet demand that families have for quality summer experiences for their children and improve access to summer nutrition programs.

CONCLUSION 2-5: The private sector is well positioned to have an impact on summer experiences by employing youth directly and by promoting family-friendly policies and corporate social responsibility initiatives that engage children and youth during the summer months.

CONCLUSION 4-2: Summer employment is an important and effective summer experience for middle and late adolescents and is effective in reducing crime and improving academic outcomes.

CONCLUSION 5-1: Communities and families have existing resources and infrastructure that can be leveraged through partnerships to increase access to summer programs for children and youth.

CONCLUSION 6-5: Children and youth who live in less advantageous circumstances (e.g., with poverty or food insecurity or in neighborhoods with high incidence of violence, crime, or over-policing) face numerous obstacles in having their needs met across the four developmental domains and in accessing positive summer experiences.

Suggested Citation:"6 Future Directions for Policy, Practice, and Research." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Shaping Summertime Experiences: Opportunities to Promote Healthy Development and Well-Being for Children and Youth. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25546.
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RECOMMENDATION 4: Federal and state government agencies should review existing policies and regulations for programs and services for children and youth to enable the continuation during the summer months of school-year funding and resources for effective physical activity, nutrition, obesity prevention, and enrichment programs, particularly those that serve children and youth in poor and underserved communities.

Continued funding and resources beyond the school year would provide city, county, and state school systems the opportunity to extend effective physical activity, nutrition, obesity, and enrichment interventions into the summer and to continue serving high-priority underserved populations of children and youth. The evidence is clear that participation in structured programs during the summer reduces youth problem behavior and promotes positive outcomes (Osgood et al., 2005). Facilitating access to summertime funding for agencies, organizations, and sectors successfully engaging these populations may be a promising approach for more effectively engaging a broad range of youth in meaningful summertime experiences.

Supporting Conclusions for This Recommendation

CONCLUSION 2-2: Improving the accessibility and availability of summer programs by reducing barriers to equitable participation (e.g., cost, geography, special needs) could help to address the unmet demand that families have for quality summer experiences for their children and improve access to summer nutrition programs.

CONCLUSION 3-1: Ensuring optimal nutrition, physical activity, and continuation of effective school-year programs for all children and youth in the summer would reduce health risks related to obesity and food insecurity that children and youth experience in the summer months.

CONCLUSION 5-2: Children who are poor or near-poor or live in geographies of concentrated disadvantage have less access to adequate nutrition and the high-quality summertime programming that provide opportunities for healthy development in the summer.

CONCLUSION 6-1: Summertime experiences can affect academic, health, social and emotional, and safety outcomes for children and youth, with those in disadvantaged communities at risk for worse outcomes.

Suggested Citation:"6 Future Directions for Policy, Practice, and Research." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Shaping Summertime Experiences: Opportunities to Promote Healthy Development and Well-Being for Children and Youth. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25546.
×

CONCLUSION 6-2: There are opportunities for systems and agents to implement innovative new programs and expand existing effective practices that exist during the school year into the summer period.

RECOMMENDATION 5: The U.S. Department of Agriculture should work with state and local governments to reduce food insecurity for children and youth during the summer through existing mechanisms by increasing access to the Summer Food Service Program (SFSP), reducing barriers to community eligibility for the SFSP, and expanding the Summer Electronic Benefits Transfer for Children Program.

Food insecurity can impact a child’s learning and health outcomes during summertime and is associated with poorer health for children and their family members, lower academic test scores, and suboptimal cognitive development (Beaulieu, 2014; Cook et al., 2006). However, a large percentage of children who receive meals during the academic year do not receive a meal through the SFSP (Food Research Action Center, 2019). In order to expand the reach of this program and increase its utilization, barriers to participation need to be addressed. These barriers include the inability of many children and youth to access summer programs, which often serve as the service delivery point of the SFSP, due to cost or lack of transportation, as well as eligibility requirements that exclude some low-income communities.

In addition to the SFSP, the Department of Agriculture is currently implementing demonstrations of the Summer Electronic Benefits Transfer for Children program (SEBTC) through existing infrastructure built for its Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC). SEBTC has been shown to have high levels of participation and may be an additional effective means of meeting the nutritional needs of children and youth during the summer.

Supporting Conclusions for This Recommendation

CONCLUSION 2-2: Improving the accessibility and availability of summer programs by reducing barriers to equitable participation (e.g., cost, geography, special needs) could help to address the unmet demand that families have for quality summer experiences for their children and improve access to summer nutrition programs.

CONCLUSION 3-3: The Summer Food Service Program and the Summer Electronic Benefits Transfer for Children Program play crucial roles in reducing food insecurity and increasing access to healthy foods during the summer.

Suggested Citation:"6 Future Directions for Policy, Practice, and Research." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Shaping Summertime Experiences: Opportunities to Promote Healthy Development and Well-Being for Children and Youth. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25546.
×

CONCLUSION 5-2: Children who are poor or near-poor or live in geographies of concentrated disadvantage have less access to adequate nutrition and the high-quality summertime programming that provide opportunities for healthy development in the summer.

CONCLUSION 6-1: Summertime experiences can affect academic, health, social and emotional, and safety outcomes, with children and youth in disadvantaged communities at risk for worse outcomes.

CONCLUSION 6-4: All children have basic developmental needs, including the need for adequate nutrition and the need for safety, which must be met as a critical precondition for summer programs and services.

RECOMMENDATION 6: Federal, state, and city officials, in partnership with the private sector, should increase funding for structured summer employment programs in order to serve more adolescents.

Robust studies of city-run summer youth employment programs—which braid city, state, and federal dollars to fund wages for employed youth—show strong results. These programs are an efficient approach to public policy that leverages modest public investment in order to secure private-sector employment experiences for teenagers.

Supporting Conclusions for This Recommendation

CONCLUSION 2-5: The private sector is well positioned to have an impact on summer experiences by employing youth directly and by promoting family-friendly policies and corporate social responsibility initiatives that engage children and youth during the summer months.

CONCLUSION 4-2: Summer employment is an important and effective summer experience for middle and late adolescents and is effective in reducing crime and improving academic outcomes.

RECOMMENDATION 7: Those government agencies (federal, state, and local), nongovernmental organizations (e.g., foundations), and parts of the business community that fund, deliver, or otherwise support summertime experiences for children and youth should target summer programs that

  • focus on underserved children and youth;
  • target the specific needs of participants;
Suggested Citation:"6 Future Directions for Policy, Practice, and Research." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Shaping Summertime Experiences: Opportunities to Promote Healthy Development and Well-Being for Children and Youth. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25546.
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  • meet the health and safety requirements of participants in developmentally and culturally appropriate ways;
  • identify specific outcomes and measurements;
  • have concrete plans to promote strong attendance; and
  • are accessible to participants and of sufficient duration to meet desired programming outcomes.

Summer programs can support the development and well-being of children and youth, but they are not guaranteed to do so (McCombs et al., 2019). To maximize the return on investment, funders should prioritize programs and services that will be highly accessible to participants and are aligned with the factors that make programs effective, including intentional programming designed to meet the developmental and cultural needs of specific populations and desired outcomes, to achieve strong participant attendance, and to be of sufficient duration.

Supporting Conclusions for This Recommendation

CONCLUSION 2-2: Improving the accessibility and availability of summer programs by reducing barriers to equitable participation (e.g., cost, geography, special needs) could help to address the unmet demand that families have for quality summer experiences for their children and improve access to summer nutrition programs.

CONCLUSION 4-1: Summer programs can be designed to promote children’s and youth’s safety, physical and mental health, social and emotional development, and academic learning, but they must be targeted to the needs of participants, have programming linked to desired outcomes, be of sufficient duration, and promote strong attendance.

CONCLUSION 5-2: Children who are poor or near-poor or live in geographies of concentrated disadvantage have less access to adequate nutrition and high-quality summertime programming that provide opportunities for healthy development in the summer.

CONCLUSION 5-3: Sources of risk (e.g., racial and ethnic discrimination, special health care needs, LGBTQ+ status, trauma history, justice or child welfare system involvement) can heighten inequities in access to summertime experiences that affect health, development, safety, and learning.

Suggested Citation:"6 Future Directions for Policy, Practice, and Research." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Shaping Summertime Experiences: Opportunities to Promote Healthy Development and Well-Being for Children and Youth. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25546.
×

CONCLUSION 6-1: Summertime experiences can affect academic, health, social and emotional, and safety outcomes for children and youth, with those in disadvantaged communities at risk for worse outcomes.

CONCLUSION 6-4: All children have basic developmental needs, including the need for adequate nutrition and the need for safety, which must be met as a critical precondition for summer programs and services.

CONCLUSION 6-5: Children and youth who live in less advantageous circumstances (e.g., with poverty or food insecurity or in neighborhoods with high incidence of violence, crime, or over-policing) face numerous obstacles in having their needs met across the four developmental domains and in accessing positive summer experiences.

RECOMMENDATION 8: Government agencies (federal, state, and local) that play an active role in the supervision, detention, or custodial care of children and youth should provide comprehensive developmental (academic, social, emotional), health, and safety programs during the summer period. This programming should consider and respond appropriately to the risks to healthy development, health, and safety that affect children and youth in these circumstances and that disproportionately affect poor, immigrant, homeless, and racial and ethnic minority populations in this group.

For many system-involved children and youth (i.e., those involved in the child welfare or juvenile justice system or under police custody), government agencies are the main providers of supervision, and in some cases they fill the role of custodian. System involvement puts these children and youth at particular risk for decreased access to effective summertime programming, and there are few examples where these government agencies have implemented comprehensive programs and practices that implement positive youth development approaches or meet the developmental needs of those in their care. Research shows that the systems that interact with this population should ensure that their policies and practices are developmentally appropriate, meet health and educational needs, and avoid causing harm. Because many system-involved children and youth are living with family, in foster homes, or in community-based congregate care of some kind rather than in commitment facilities, communities, municipalities, and state agencies should collaborate, design, and make available the programming that these young people need to experience healthy development over the summer.

Suggested Citation:"6 Future Directions for Policy, Practice, and Research." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Shaping Summertime Experiences: Opportunities to Promote Healthy Development and Well-Being for Children and Youth. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25546.
×

Providing effective resources, opportunities, and services designed to promote the healthy development of system-involved young people is a cost-effective strategy for promoting long-term public safety. Criminal justice strategies that focus on punishment and incapacitation are counterproductive if the goal is to help young people grow into law-abiding adults.

Supporting Conclusions for This Recommendation

CONCLUSION 2-1: Existing summertime programs and services for children and youth are provided by multiple sectors and agents; however, decisions by these sectors and agents on what experiences to provide are made independently and typically with limited or no coordination to optimize the total impact of summertime experiences for children and youth.

CONCLUSION 2-6: Juvenile justice and child welfare systems do not have a comprehensive approach for system-involved children and youth specific to summertime.

CONCLUSION 5-3: Sources of risk (e.g., racial and ethnic discrimination, special health care needs, LGBTQ+ status, trauma history, justice or child welfare system involvement) can heighten inequities in access to summertime experiences that affect health, development, safety, and learning.

CONCLUSION 5-7: Systems where the state plays an active role of supervision or custodial responsibility for children and youth, including local policing systems and juvenile justice and child welfare systems, have an enhanced obligation to improve their practices by applying positive youth development principles in their interactions with children and youth.

CONCLUSION 6-1: Summertime experiences can affect academic, health, social and emotional, and safety outcomes, with children and youth in disadvantaged communities at risk for worse outcomes.

CONCLUSION 6-5: Children and youth who live in less advantageous circumstances (e.g., with poverty or food insecurity or in neighborhoods with high incidence of violence, crime, or over-policing) face numerous obstacles in having their needs met across the four developmental domains and in accessing positive summer experiences.

Suggested Citation:"6 Future Directions for Policy, Practice, and Research." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Shaping Summertime Experiences: Opportunities to Promote Healthy Development and Well-Being for Children and Youth. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25546.
×

Advancing Data Collection and Research

RECOMMENDATION 9: Government agencies (federal, state, and local) and nongovernmental organizations (e.g., foundations) that sponsor surveys and collect data on children and youth that includes the summer months should

  • establish and maintain databases that allow for disaggregation of data by month;
  • extend academic-year data collection to include the summer months when appropriate to the subject of the data collection; and
  • share data across systems when possible.

In its review of the evidence related to the four outcome domains, the committee found multiple instances where data collection that occurred during the school year ceased during the summer months, leaving gaps in the available evidence related to summertime experiences and the effect of summer on developmental growth.

The committee also identified numerous examples of existing datasets where it was not possible to disaggregate data by month or season. Having monthly and/or seasonal data available would make it possible to attain valuable insights into the experiences of children and youth during the summer. Improving and better integrating data sources and systems would help to inform policy, practice, and research. The following are examples at the federal government level where such improved data collection could occur:

  • Agencies within the Department of Health and Human Services should ensure that infrastructure exists for monitoring seasonal variations in child/youth health outcomes. This would include the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention creating and maintaining a database for summer-specific morbidity, mortality, behavioral risk factors, and risk-taking behaviors; and at other agencies (e.g., National Institutes of Health; Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration; Administration for Children and Families) establishing and maintaining databases that track summer-specific health and social and emotional well-being outcomes.
  • The National Center for Educational Statistics should create and maintain a database that tracks summer-specific academic learning, social and emotional learning, and outcomes.
  • The Department of Justice should create and maintain a database that tracks summer-specific youth–police encounters, crime, victimization, and delinquency.
Suggested Citation:"6 Future Directions for Policy, Practice, and Research." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Shaping Summertime Experiences: Opportunities to Promote Healthy Development and Well-Being for Children and Youth. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25546.
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  • The Department of Education’s 21st Century Community Learning Center (Title IVB) program should update the 21 Annual Performance Reporting (21 APR) System to build on existing data and reporting on summer, including data on participants by type of program, geography, and demographics.

Supporting Conclusions for This Recommendation

CONCLUSION 2-3: There is limited comprehensive data on how children and youth spend their summer. Systematic assessments of community needs for summertime experiences and longitudinal studies of unstructured and structured summertime experiences (both in terms of what is being provided as well as what is needed) are needed to identify opportunity gaps and priorities across diverse populations of children and youth.

CONCLUSION 3-2: More research is needed to understand the full impact of summertime experiences on outcomes and trajectories related to child and youth safety, pro- and anti-social, risk-taking, and delinquency-related behaviors; mental health; and social and emotional development. This need is especially great for underserved populations, which have been underrepresented in the research literature to date, including children who are American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, immigrant, migrant and refugee, homeless, child welfare or justice system involved, and LGBTQ+, as well as those with special health care or developmental needs.

CONCLUSION 4-4: Research is needed on the impact of summer programs on the developmental trajectories of children and youth over the course of multiple years. The current literature examines one-off programs but does not address the effect of the multiple experiences children and youth have over the course of their childhood.

CONCLUSION 4-5: Research is needed on different types of programs, replication studies in different contexts, and programs serving underserved populations. This last need includes programs serving children who are American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, immigrant, migrant or refugee, homeless, system-involved, LGBTQ, and those with special health care or developmental needs.

CONCLUSION 5-5: More research on disparities related to family socioeconomic status, racial/ethnic subgroup, family status, and geography is needed to inform policy initiatives that address inequitable access to quality summer experiences.

Suggested Citation:"6 Future Directions for Policy, Practice, and Research." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Shaping Summertime Experiences: Opportunities to Promote Healthy Development and Well-Being for Children and Youth. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25546.
×

CONCLUSION 5-6: More research is needed that specifically examines summertime experiences and their distribution across children and youth living in different types of family and community contexts, particularly underserved populations (e.g., children who are American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, immigrant, migrant and refugee, homeless, system-involved, LGBTQ, and those with special health care or developmental needs).

CONCLUSION 6-1: Summertime experiences can affect academic, health, social and emotional, and safety outcomes, with children and youth in disadvantaged communities at risk for worse outcomes.

CONCLUSION 6-7: Existing data systems do not adequately capture seasonal differences in outcomes in the four domains examined by the committee, making it difficult to fully understand the summertime experiences of children and youth.

In its examination of the evidence, the committee identified existing gaps and specific needs for future research with the potential to inform evidence-based summer programs and practices and to increase understanding of the summertime experiences of children and youth in the United States. These research needs are summarized in Table 6-1.

Supporting Conclusions for Recommended Future Research

CONCLUSION 2-3: There is limited comprehensive data on how children and youth spend their summer. Systematic assessments of community needs for summertime experiences and longitudinal studies of unstructured and structured summertime experiences (both in terms of what is being provided as well as what is needed) are needed to identify opportunity gaps and priorities across diverse populations of children and youth.

CONCLUSION 3-2: More research is needed to understand the full impact of summertime experiences on outcomes and trajectories related to child and youth safety, pro- and anti-social, risk-taking, and delinquency-related behaviors; mental health; and social and emotional development. This need is especially great for underserved populations, which have been underrepresented in the research literature to date, including children who are American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, immigrant, migrant and refugee, homeless, child welfare or justice system involved, and LGBTQ+, as well as those with special health care or developmental needs.

Suggested Citation:"6 Future Directions for Policy, Practice, and Research." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Shaping Summertime Experiences: Opportunities to Promote Healthy Development and Well-Being for Children and Youth. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25546.
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TABLE 6-1 Research Needs to Inform Evidence-Based Summertime Programs and Practices

General Category Specific Research Needs
Developmental Trajectories
  • Conduct longitudinal studies that examine the effect of different types of summertime experiences over the course of childhood/adolescence and the effect on long-term developmental outcomes for children and youth.
  • Conduct research on resilience and asset-based approaches to improving developmental outcomes with special attention to underserved populations.
Effectiveness of Programs and Practices
  • Examine how participation in summer programs over multiple years affects outcomes for children and youth.
  • Conduct replication studies to understand how different contexts may change outcomes.
  • Review existing public/private employer summertime programs for effectiveness and define elements that could be replicated by employers in underserved communities.
  • Move beyond pre/post program studies to prospective controlled studies, ideally with randomization.
  • Develop a standardized set of effectiveness metrics for summertime program evaluations.
  • Understand how supports for parents and caregivers can shape family-based and informal experiences into opportunities for growth across the four areas of well-being.
  • Conduct studies on how to implement, disseminate, and scale effective programs and practices.
Time Use of Children and Youth
  • Conduct longitudinal studies of unstructured and structured summertime experiences.
  • Expand time-use surveys to differentiate between summertime and other times of the year; to include children living within foster care and juvenile justice settings; to include time use by children and youth under age 15; to differentiate opportunities by agents; and to consider changes in children’s technology use and access.
Underserved Populations
  • Understand how community, neighborhood, and family contexts affect outcomes for children and youth during the summer.
  • Conduct research on the characteristics of programs that have been shown to be effective for children and youth from underserved populations.
  • Understand the needs of system-involved children and youth and policies/practices that can be implemented to meet their developmental needs.
Suggested Citation:"6 Future Directions for Policy, Practice, and Research." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Shaping Summertime Experiences: Opportunities to Promote Healthy Development and Well-Being for Children and Youth. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25546.
×
General Category Specific Research Needs
Academic Learning and Enrichment
  • Conduct research to establish optimal best practices (e.g. dosage, staffing, curriculum, mix of academic and enrichment content) separately and in combination to advance the academic development of children from different backgrounds, at different developmental stages, and in different family and community contexts in targeted academic outcomes.
  • Conduct research to better understand the summer-related academic learning outcomes and enrichment opportunities for subpopulations of children and youth who are currently underrepresented in the literature, which has focused primarily on the Black-White and low-high socioeconomic status gaps. These populations include but are not limited to children and youth who are American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, immigrant, migrant and refugee, homeless, system-involved, LGBTQ+, and those with special health care or developmental needs.
Social and Emotional Development
  • Examine seasonal patterns related to the developmental trajectories of social and emotional skills for children and youth.
  • Identify seasonal trajectories of social and emotional learning for children and youth across grades.
  • Conduct research to understand the effects of different types of summer experiences on social and emotional skills.
Physical and Mental Health
  • Examine best practices for reducing food insecurity for children and youth during the summer.
  • Conduct research to understand whether there are changes in rates of injury (e.g., motor vehicle injuries, recreational injuries, firearm injuries, self-inflicted injuries) during the summer.
  • Conduct research on rates and causes of violence (e.g. domestic violence, child/youth homicide and victimization, exposure to neighborhood violence) during the summer.
  • Examine best practices and supports needed to promote the mental and behavioral health of children and youth during the summer.
Safety, Risk-taking, and Anti-/Pro-Social Behaviors
  • Conduct research to understand whether participation in risky behaviors (e.g., smoking and e-cigarette use, underage alcohol consumption, teen pregnancy) changes during the summer.
  • Conduct research to learn more about effective practices for promoting pro-social behaviors during the summer.
  • Conduct research to learn more about rates of and circumstances surrounding police contact with youth during the summer.
Suggested Citation:"6 Future Directions for Policy, Practice, and Research." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Shaping Summertime Experiences: Opportunities to Promote Healthy Development and Well-Being for Children and Youth. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25546.
×

CONCLUSION 4-4: Research is needed on the impact of summer programs on the developmental trajectories of children and youth over the course of multiple years. The current literature examines one-off programs but does not address the effect of the multiple experiences children and youth have over the course of their childhood.

CONCLUSION 4-5: Research is needed on different types of programs, replication studies in different contexts, and programs serving underserved populations. This last need includes programs serving children who are American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, immigrant, migrant or refugee, homeless, system-involved, LGBTQ, and those with special health care or developmental needs.

CONCLUSION 5-5: More research on disparities related to family socioeconomic status, racial/ethnic subgroup, family status, and geography is needed to inform policy initiatives that address inequitable access to quality summer experiences.

CONCLUSION 5-6: More research is needed that specifically examines summertime experiences and their distribution across children and youth living in different types of family and community contexts, particularly underserved populations (e.g., children who are American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, immigrant, migrant and refugee, homeless, system-involved, LGBTQ, and those with special health care or developmental needs).

CONCLUSION 6-6: Although there is a robust research literature documenting the impact of summer on academic developmental trajectories, research on the impact of summer on other developmental domains examined by the committee is scarce, leaving many questions about best practices unanswered. This is a priority research need.

CONCLUSION 6-7: Existing data systems do not adequately capture seasonal differences in outcomes in the four domains examined by the committee, making it difficult to fully understand the summertime experiences of children and youth.

REFERENCES

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Suggested Citation:"6 Future Directions for Policy, Practice, and Research." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Shaping Summertime Experiences: Opportunities to Promote Healthy Development and Well-Being for Children and Youth. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25546.
×

Cook, J. T., Frank, D. A., Levenson, S. M., Neault, N. B., Heeren, T. C., Black, M. M., Berkowitz, C., Casey, P. H., Meyers, A. F., Cutts, D. B., and Chilton, M. (2006). Child food insecurity increases risks posed by household food insecurity to young children’s health. Journal of Nutrition, 136(4), 1073–1076.

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McCombs, J. S., Augustine, C. H., Unlu, F., Ziol-Guest, K. M., Naftel, S., Gomez, C. J., Marsh, T., Akinniranye, G., and Todd, I. (2019). Investing in Successful Summer Programs: A Review of Evidence Under the Every Student Succeeds Act. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation. Available: https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR2836.html.

Osgood, D. W., Anderson, A. L., and Shaffer, J. N. (2005). Unstructured leisure in the after-school hours. In Organized Activities as Contexts of Development (pp. 57–76). Psychology Press.

Utt, R. (2001). New Tax Laws Boosts School Construction with Public-Private Partnerships. Washington, DC: The Heritage Foundation. Available: https://www.heritage.org/node/19204/print-display.

Suggested Citation:"6 Future Directions for Policy, Practice, and Research." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Shaping Summertime Experiences: Opportunities to Promote Healthy Development and Well-Being for Children and Youth. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25546.
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For children and youth, summertime presents a unique break from the traditional structure, resources, and support systems that exist during the school year. For some students, this time involves opportunities to engage in fun and enriching activities and programs, while others face additional challenges as they lose a variety of supports, including healthy meals, medical care, supervision, and structured programs that enhance development. Children that are limited by their social, economic, or physical environments during the summer months are at higher risk for worse academic, health, social and emotional, and safety outcomes. In contrast, structured summertime activities and programs support basic developmental needs and positive outcomes for children and youth who can access and afford these programs. These discrepancies in summertime experiences exacerbate pre-existing academic inequities. While further research is needed regarding the impact of summertime on developmental domains outside of the academic setting, extensive literature exists regarding the impact of summertime on academic development trajectories. However, this knowledge is not sufficiently applied to policy and practice, and it is important to address these inequalities.

Shaping Summertime Experiences examines the impact of summertime experiences on the developmental trajectories of school-age children and youth across four areas of well-being, including academic learning, social and emotional development, physical and mental health, and health-promoting and safety behaviors. It also reviews the state of science and available literature regarding the impact of summertime experiences. In addition, this report provides recommendations to improve the experiences of children over the summertime regarding planning, access and equity, and opportunities for further research and data collection.

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