After School Standards

COA's Standards for After School Programs reflect COA's philosophy that COA Accreditation is not an end but a means to an end. The real endpoint is a program's enhanced growth and stability, an unwavering commitment to the health, safety, and rights of children and youth, and measurable and observable results.

To that end, when COA partnered with the National AfterSchool Association (NAA) to transition its accreditation program to COA, we set out to develop a set of standards that are based on generally accepted elements of best practice, outcomes-oriented, effective in advancing quality, and responsive to the unique needs and diversity of after school programs.

COA's After School Standards represent a merging of NAA's standards and COA's standards, and are organized into three separate sections: After School Program Administration (ASP-AM), After School Human Resources (ASP-HR), and After School Programming and Services (ASP-PS). The Program Administration standards cover practices related to continuous quality improvement, financial management, risk prevention and management, and ethical practice. The Human Resources standards address recruitment and selection, training and professional development, support, and supervision. The Programming and Services standards set forth additional recommended practices for working with children and youth in programs occurring during non-school time. Programs implement all three sections of standards. Taken together, these standards represent a set of practices that support quality programming and promote positive outcomes for children and youth.

Each section of standards is organized according to a three-level structure that supports self-assessment and standards implementation. At the highest level, a purpose standard provides the overall aim of the section of standards. At a middle level, each section is comprised of several sub-sections that are headed by core concept standards. Core concept standards describe program components that support the purpose standard. Lastly, at a third level, standards contain detailed practices that contribute to the core concept, and to meeting the purpose. These are practice standards.

COA's standards are grounded in a long-standing, widely held belief that children, youth, and families benefit when a program enhances its capacity to achieve its mission and validate its impact. COA also embraces the idea that the positive effects of implementing national standards multiply when programs become part of a community that shares and supports this perspective. We hope you will consult and implement the standards to that end.