Sam Piha

Sam Piha has more than 30 years experience in schools and non-profit settings, designing and managing programs to facilitate the education and positive development of youth, with particular expertise in after-school programming and policy issues. Sam has broad experience in translating policy into action in the after-school context, having chaired the Committee on Evaluation, and serving on the Steering and Policy Committees of the California After School Partnership. Sam serves in leadership positions on numerous policy boards related to after-school programs, including the Design Team for the California Afterschool Master Plan, the Committee on Afterschool Accountability, the California High School Afterschool Working Group, and the Mott After School Academy. Prior to establishing his current consulting practice, Sam worked with the Community Network for Youth Development (San Francisco) for seven years, serving as the Client Developer, focusing on providing capacity-building resources to promote youth development and learning. Between 1996 and 2001, Sam served as CNYD's Managing Director for the San Francisco Beacon Initiative. Sam has been involved in the development of school-based youth programs at the regional and national levels since 1989.

Sam also has experience working in post-secondary contexts. Most recently Sam has worked with Bay Region community colleges on an initiative to address emergent needs in the area of health information technologies. He has taught courses in urban recreation and leisure in the Department of Recreation and Leisure at San Francisco State University, and is an annual presenter at the Harvard Roundtable on Afterschool Programming. His earlier work with young people included ten years as a classroom teacher and five years as a child and family psychotherapist. Sam holds a Masters Degree in Social Welfare and is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker.