The National League of Cities (NLC), through its Institute for Youth, Education and Families, produced this report to help city leaders, senior municipal staff and their local partners answer those questions as they work to strengthen and coordinate services for youth and families, particularly for those cities building comprehensive afterschool systems. It provides a thorough review of what it takes to build effective management information systems for youth services, including a detailed "how to" guide for preparing for and implementing an afterschool MIS (management information system) and strategies for addressing privacy and security concerns in collaboration with schools and families. The report concludes with a comparative analysis of six leading commercial MIS vendors and a cost calculator to help communities explore the expense of differently configured systems. In addition, city leaders and staff will find a growing library of resources on the NLC website to speed their progress, including sample requests for proposals, data sharing agreements, system architectures, and other useful tools to borrow and adapt. Fair Information Practice Principles (FIPPS) are appended. (Contains 5 charts and 6 footnotes.) [For "Building Management Information Systems to Coordinate Citywide Afterschool Programs: A Toolkit for Cities. Executive Summary," see ED537006.].

The evidence-based strategies in this volume close the achievement gap among students from all sociological backgrounds. Designed according to local needs assessments, they provide the services, programs, initiatives, and relationships that are crucial for children's success in school and life. These practices and programs include afterschool and summer sessions, early-childhood education, school-linked health and mental health services, family engagement, and youth leadership opportunities. This book addresses the policy and funding requirements that help these partnerships thrive and offers effective counterarguments against those who would question their value. The text describes strategies that work in both rural and urban contexts and includes a chapter evaluating school-community partnerships across the world. Because it involves collaborations across professions and organizations, the book's interdisciplinary approach will appeal to those in social work, education, psychology, public health, counseling, nursing, and public policy.