As part of California’s Expanded Learning Ecosystem Plan process, we continue to deepen our statewide listening efforts through the pilot of the ExL Statewide Listening Toolkit: A Flexible Guide for Decolonized Data Collection and Collective Meaning-Making, launched in March 2026.

What is a Listening Strategy?

The listening strategy helps ensure our emerging strategic priorities are shaped by what youth, families, and the workforce are actually experiencing, needing, and imagining for the future. As we continue learning alongside the Ecosystem Design + Advisory teams, we are adapting the toolkit and process in real time based on collective practice and community insight.

How to Participate?

One ongoing way to participate in the statewide strategic design process is through our monthly “Sound Waves,” short online surveys that gather insights from across California’s broader youth-serving ecosystem. Your responses help inform the strategies, partnerships, and conditions for thriving reflected in the Ecosystem Plan. 

Participate in this month’s Sound Wave on the emerging strategic priority: “Healing-centered, culturally rooted” high-quality programs HERE.

Learn more about the Ecosystem Plan on our website: https://www.afterschoolnetwork.org/ecosystem-design-and-plan