The Achieve, Connect, Thrive (ACT) Skills Framework displays the skills that evidence suggests students need in order to succeed in school, college, and careers.  The skills are the focus of leading after-school and summer learning programs.  Boston After School & Beyond is organizing several projects to demonstrate ACT in action.

Commissioned by the Mayor, the Boston Public Schools, Boston After School & Beyond, and the United Way, with the support of The Wallace Foundation, the framework provides a common vocabulary to bridge education and youth development, as well as school, after-school and summer learning.  Increasingly, the framework acts as a guide to help youth programs articulate outcomes and how they are measured.

Boston After School & Beyond is currently leading a revision process of the ACT Framework to ensure it reflects recent research on social-emotional learning and youth development. The revision process also seeks to establish shared definitions of skills and create greater alignment between the ACT Framework and the suite of measurement tools used by Boston After School & Beyond program partners as part of the Measurement for Continuous Improvement work.

This work is being done in close collaboration with the PEAR Institute, the National Institute on Out-of-School Time, and the RAND Corporation, with generous support from the Wallace Foundation. A select group of program partners spanning initiatives, summer and afterschool, age group served, and program content area serve on the Partner Advisory Group on Measurement to provide feedback and guidance to the project.