For the average educator, family, or young person who wants to join a park program but isn't familiar with the different organizations that operate here, the options can be overwhelming. By consolidating information about different programs across the park, PYC was able to develop Park Youth Exchange, a public database of every youth program in the park. Users can filter over a hundred park programs by topic, grade, and time of year to find the most suitable programs for themselves or their students.

Visit ParkYouthExchange.com to try it yourself!

From the very beginning, PYC recognized that different organizations report their youth program metrics differently, so PYC created PYC Cloud, and internal website just for park educators and all their data needs. By having a shared system for tracking program attendance, PYC can better understand who programs are serving, and share how individual programs are add up to a larger impact on youth in the Bay Area.

PYC Cloud also houses PYC's Program Quality Assessment system, which goes hand-in-hand with our other Shared Learning work. Through this system, educators work together to gather and share program feedback with each other. By seeing how programs measure up, educators can find peers who are working on the same program types, find areas for collaboration, and discover new ways to improve their own programs. The purpose of collective assessment for programs is to highlight successes and inform future progress.

The system revolves around assessment in five areas:

• Access - Both physical and emotional. Is this a program that students can get to? Are materials supplied for non-English speakers?
• Safety - Both physical and emotional. Is this program welcoming for students from marginalized communities? Is proper safety equipment given out during the program?
• Relevancy - How well does this program connect to students' lives? Did students connect program content to their own communities?
• Impact - How effective was the message of this program? Do students seem like they will take any of their learning home with them?
• Programmatic Excellence - How smoothly did the program go? Were there any scheduling hiccups?

ParksConnect.com is an upcoming portal for students to find and register for programs and opportunities in the park. It will be full of features that enable users to find the perfect program for their interests, then leverage their park experiences to accomplish their personal and professional goals.

ParksConnect is coming soon!