Important Changes Regarding the May 18th CP Draft

From AFSWiki

Dear AFS USA Hosting Coordinators and Chairs:

We hope you’re all doing well, and enjoying some springtime weather! You are undoubtedly engrossed in host family finding efforts for our AFSers arriving on the NH11 cycle, spreading the word throughout your communities about the benefits of becoming an AFS Host Family. This month is a critical time for us not only in terms of identifying families to host, but also in terms of securing as many spots in schools as possible before they close for the summer. This needs to be the collective focus of Hosting Volunteers and Staff alike, in the spirit of doing things EARLIER as established at the Hosting Conference last Fall.

For this reason and several others as described below, the Hosting Management Team in conjunction with the Hosting Advisory Group came to the conclusion that there is a need to make an adjustment to the May 18th Community Placement (CP) Draft. It will now be optional, will not involve a draft, and allow participatory teams to CP up to 70% of their 2011 hosting goal beginning on May 18th. Teams choosing to participate will simply enter CP requests in Global Link for available students. Teams can choose not to CP any students, or CP only 20%, 30%, etc. of their goal at their discretion, as long as the total number of CP students does not exceed 70% of their 2011 hosting goal.

For a variety of reasons, the Hosting Management Team and Hosting Advisory Group believe that instating the 100% CP Draft next week would be disruptive. Some reasons include:

• We are behind in placements compared to last year

• There was a stall in host family placements following the 2010 June 1st 100% CP draft

• Many school closing dates are during the month of May

• There is a large volume of applications (more than 1300) currently in Regionally Available/Area Team Hold

• We have received feedback and concerns expressed by volunteers about the 100% mandatory CP draft, specifically about how time consuming it would be to select students with so many in the RA pool

Organizationally we cannot afford to shift our focus away from recruiting host families and securing school spots prior to deadlines. It is of utmost importance that we utilize the month of May to get as many students into schools as possible. If you have not considered asking family, friends, and community members to be welcome families in order to obtain school spots, now is the time to do so!

Teams who choose to CP students beginning May 18th should consider the following:

1. Only Core Participants can be CP’d beginning May 18th (not YES, FLEX or CB students)

2. As opposed to a Draft, requests to CP students should be entered into Global Link.

3. CP requests will not trump preceding ATH or PWP requests, as they will be allowed to expire before the CP request is honored. If a team has a student on ATH and submits a CP request for the same student within the 4 day time frame, the CP request will be honored.

4. Teams should account for their share of students from the ‘Big Four’ countries and Sponsored Programs students as previously provided by your Regional Hosting Manager, when calculating how many core participants to CP.

5. As you place students from your CP pool, you will be allowed to CP additional students from the RA pool, as long as your total CP pool does not exceed 70% of your 2011 hosting goal.

For teams who have not placed and/or CP’d 100% of their 2011 hosting goal beforehand, a mandatory 100% CP draft will take place on July 6th. Teams who have already accounted for their goal via CP and placements prior to July 6th will not need to participate in the draft. Stay tuned for details on this draft, as well as the Sponsored Programs draft, in an upcoming communication.

As always, thanks for all you do for making the AFS experience possible for participants, host families, schools and communities!

Best regards,

Ann Steffen, Director of Inbound Programs

Gerry Bair, Chair, Hosting Advisory Group