Addressing Staff Retention Within Your Organization

1
Addressing Staff RetentionWithin Your
Organization

• Jennifer Buher-Kane
• Senior Research Coordinator
• Out-of-School Time Resource Center
• University of Pennsylvania

2
Two Central Issues

• How to address staff retention with your
  organization
• How to incorporate research on staff retention
  into future grant proposals

3
Overview

• Review current research
• Identify the causes and consequences
• Consider current national level efforts
• Address how this can inform your own work within
  your OST organization

4
The Future of Children, 1999

• 58 of the programs surveyed had experienced
  turnover during the previous year, and those
  programs reported that 60 of their staff had
  changed40 of the staff had been with the
  observed program for less than one year (Lowe
  Vandell and Shumow, 1999).

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The Future of Children, 1999

• Jobs in after-school programs are primarily
  part time and poorly paidFew front line staff
  have academic preparation for work in the
  after-school field, perceiving little financial
  gain to seeking out relevant courses, lacking
  time to do so, lacking interest (because they
  will be in the field for only a few years),
  and/or lacking confidence in their academic
  skills (Halpern 1999).

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Factors Relating to Staff Turnover (Identified
through the MOST Initiative)

• Multiplies the stress on remaining staff
• Contributes to chaotic environment
• Lowers expectations for new hires
• Hiring staff with little educational preparation
• (Halpern 1999)

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Causes Identified Through the MOST Initiative

• Low Pay
• Higher wages are a key factor in reducing staff
  turnover (Lowe Vandel and Shumow 1999).
• Low expectations of staff to stay within the
  field, making this a career
• Few incentives to pursue higher education
• Turnover appears to result from the lack of
  adequate compensation and options for upward
  mobility within the field (NIOST 2003).

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Similar Findings in Formal Education (Ingersoll
2004)

• Causes
• Low pay, few resources, low levels of
  administrative support, poor student discipline,
  limited input in decision-making, not enough
  preparation time
• Consequences
• Forces lowering of expectations/standards for new
  hires
• Affects student outcomes
• Particularly detrimental within disadvantaged
  areas

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Current National and Local-Level Efforts to
Address Staff Retention
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TASCs Staff Retention Model (2001)

• Three pronged strategy
• Hire people with a built-in connection to the
  school community, such as parents
• Interview them to determine in which areas they
  have substantive expertise
• Train those individuals to design and teach a
  project to children designed around their area of
  expertise

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AEDs BEST Initiative (2002)

• Through the BEST initiative, AED has identified
  the following
• Building organizational capacity to support youth
  workers helps improve retention among youth
  workers
• Professional development is critical
• Strong networks of information sharing are key
  supports
• Youth workers must have organizational support
  and a commitment for youth development

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PA Pathways

• The TEACH scholarship program is available in
  Pennsylvania, and offers increased compensation
  for training completed.  Other scholarships (via
  the refund voucher program) are available for
  providers to pay for college level or
  CDA training.  And The Keystone Stars initiative
  provides an increase in revenue for higher
  quality centers, which can indirectly provide
  funding for increasing staff compensation.

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NIOST ProjectBuilding a Skilled and Stable
Out-of-School Workforce

• Creating training programs, professional
  standards, and an accreditation process that will
  lead to professionalizing the out-of-school field
  and increased compensation

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NAAs Afterschool Workforce Survey

• The National AfterSchool Association is
  conducting a survey to better understand the
  afterschool/youth workers workforce. Please take
  a few minutes to fill it out.
• http//snap-surveys.com/2cr/eng/

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Using the Example of Military Child Development
Centers

• Staff turnover rates in military child
  development centers have been reduced by 300
  annually since the Military Child Care Act was
  passed by Congress in 1989. The Act paved the
  way for a training system in which staff receive
  ongoing training and education that is linked to
  increases in compensation (Duff Campbell et al.,
  2000 cited by NIOST 2003).

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• In short, recruiting more teachers will not
  solve the teacher crisis if 40 to 50 percent of
  such teachers then leave within five yearsThe
  image that comes to mind is a bucket rapidly
  losing water because of holes in the bottom.
  Pouring more water into the bucket will not be
  the answer if the holes are not first patched
  (Ingersoll 2004).

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• Leadership is the key to halting the revolving
  door of turnover, guaranteeing staff a living
  wage and making working with children and youth
  during non-school hours an attractive career
  option. Despite isolated gains across the
  country, the workforce crisis will not resolve
  itself. Leaders from national, state and local
  agencies, both public and private, must make
  building a skilled and stable workforce a
  priority before measurable gains will be made
  (NIOST 2003).

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What can your organization do?
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• Respondents to the 2001 National Career
  Development Survey of early childhood/school-age
  staff reported that stipends, wage supplement
  programs, scholarships and loan preferred
  strategies to combating staff turnover (Wheelock
  College Institute for Leadership and Career
  Initiatives, 2002 cited by NIOST 2003).

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Suggestions for Organizations

• Focus on
• Increasing organizational support for staff
• Treating the field of teaching as a respected
  profession
• Attempt to raise salaries or benefits
• Integrate staff suggestions into solving behavior
  problems and program policies that affect their
  work
• Increase parental involvement

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Open Discussion

• Possible Discussion Questions
• What other factors do you believe are linked to
  staff turnover in your program?
• What other things can be done by your
  organization to address this problem?
• What other issues should researchers and
  national-level organizations focus on?

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• Jennifer Buher-Kane
• Senior Research Coordinator
• Out-of-School Time Resource Center
• University of Pennsylvania
• 3815 Walnut Street, 3rd floor
• Philadelphia, PA 19104
• [phone]
• jbuher_at_sp2.upenn.edu

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References

• BEST Strengthens Youth Worker Practice An
  Evaluation of Building Exemplary Systems for
  Training Youth Workers (BEST), 2002,
  http//www.aed.org/ToolsandPublications/upload/bes
  t.pdf
• Halpern, R., After-School Programs for
  Low-Income Children Promise and Challenges. The
  Future of Children, When School is Out, Vol. 9,
  No. 2, Fall 1999.
• Ingersoll, Richard. Why do High-Poverty Schools
  Have Difficulty Staffing Their Classrooms with
  Qualified Teachers? Report prepared for Renewing
  Our Schools, Securing Our Future, A national Task
  Force on Public Education, November 2004.
• Lowe Vandell, D. and Shumow, L., After School
  Child Care Programs, The Future of Children,
  When School is Out, Vol. 9, No. 2, Fall 1999.
• NIOST, Spotlight 2001, http//www.niost.org/public
  ations/spotlight_2001.html
• NIOST, Making the Case A Fact Sheet on children
  and Youth in Out-of-School Time, January 2003.
• NIOST, Strategic Plan Building a Skilled and
  Stable Out-of-School Time Workforce, September
  2003.
• TASC Staff Retention Model, 2001,
  http//www.tascorp.org/toolbox/promising_practices
  /staff_retention?skinprintable