Long Beach BLAST & America Learns Created an "Action Study & Inventory" to Take Stock of, Document and Strengthen the Core Components of BLAST's Internal Culture & Programming.

Summary
Since 2000, Long Beach BLAST has placed more than 4,000 service learning college student mentors with K -12 students at risk of academic failure. Some mentors provide one-on-one tutoring and homework assistance. Others offer rich lessons in technology, science, and the arts. Service learners function as role models, opening the doors to the possibility of higher education and careers.

With 200 to 350 service learners in the field at a time and just three staff members, BLAST found it extraordinarily challenging to stay on top of mentors’ successes, goals and challenges, provide mentors with support, and also collect the necessary data to measure impact and prove to funders that the organization deserves additional funding.  It’s one thing to have 350 mentors complete a paper-based activities log each week.  It’s another to find a way to quickly compile, analyze and act on the data in those logs and other evaluation-related forms.

About the Action Study & Inventory
Taking regular stock of its own monitoring, evaluation, support and communication efforts has helped BLAST to continually improve the administration of its programs.  Among other outcomes, the process lead BLAST to harness the America Learns Network.  Given BLAST and America Learns’ passion for doing whatever it takes to ensure that children served by OST programs receive superior support, we decided to document BLAST’s evolution in the form of an action study and inventory that other organizations could learn from and use.

The Action Study & Inventory is brutally honest, detailing the specific challenges BLAST faced early on and noting how it addressed and continues to address them.  The Inventory is also very flexible, giving you the ability to customize what you take stock of in the end.

 If you're evaluating the America Learns Network for your organization, the Inventory will give you a good sense around how the America Learns Network can be used to strengthen an organizations training, monitoring, support and communications practices.

Download the Action Study & Inventory.