July 16, 2018

It’s hard to believe, but fall is just around the corner. As you plan learning events and opportunities for the next school year, focus on your requirements, needs and goals. Then brainstorm and organize resources to support staff learning.

Requirements

Many states, school districts and child care licensing organizations require annual professional learning hours, and many define topics that must be covered. In addition, state 21^st CCLC program guidance may require grant-supported staff to attend events such as an annual conference. Your approved grant proposal might include a professional learning plan that defines the number of annual hours and specific training topics. Be sure you know all program and staff requirements before beginning to plan your calendar of opportunities.

Needs

Consider overall and individual staff learning needs. Have staff members do a self-assessment to uncover areas where they feel most confident and where they need further development. Now is a great time to discuss how your staff believes they learn best. Do they prefer traditional classes, or would they prefer peer mentoring? Coordinate this self-assessment information with annual staff review data and ongoing observation data to get a well-rounded view of staff needs. You might also create an inventory of strengths so you’ll know which people have skills (classroom management or activity design, for example) that might make them good mentors.

Goals

Examine your continuous improvement goals for the year. Maybe you want to emphasize project-based learning or find ways to provide continuous education through better alignment with student needs. Think about types of training and support that will help staff implement the plan. To be successful with a new initiative, staff may need to observe other practitioners in action, receive regular feedback, and have opportunities to reflect on their own learning and practice.

Resources

Y4Y has a wealth of resources to help you along the way. Staff can use online courses to build knowledge and skills on a range of topics. For quick strategies on academic enrichment activities, inclusion of students with disabilities or new director orientation, see the Y4Y Implementation Guides section. Y4Y Click and Go resources offer mini-lessons, podcasts and downloadable tools that focus on intentional design of activities. See the Y4Y Train Your Staff section for materials that help you assess staff knowledge and implement training using fully scripted PowerPoint presentations, training guides and handouts. Go to Professionalization Resources to access higher education opportunities and your state’s out-of-school time network, where you may find free or low-cost learning opportunities. With this many great learning resources, you’ll be ready to kick off a new year of learning in no time!

July 16, 2018

How is your summer program going so far? Are students engaged and attending? Retention can be a real challenge this time of year, when you don’t have the automatic incentive of school attendance to support program attendance.

Two keys to retaining students in summer and out-of-school time are family engagement and student engagement. Ideally, you already have some engagement strategies in place. For example, if you’re going to have an attendance contract with incentives for compliance, that needs to be set up at the outset. If you decide to have a parent liaison — a tactic proven to improve retention — you need to recruit a volunteer or part-time staff member well in advance. Here are more ways you can add to your retention toolkit if your current strategies aren’t enough.

Family Engagement

The younger the student population, the more family engagement matters. Here are some ideas for keeping parents and caregivers involved.

• Pick up the phone. Call families of children who’ve missed more than a day or two. Let them know their child’s participation is important to the child and to the program.
• Send materials home. Keep families engaged by showcasing what their children are doing. Suggest “conversation starters” about an aspect of program content that families can discuss together, followed by simple activities the whole family can do at home — find examples here.
• Set up a family meeting. Involve whole families in program content with a fun, active event.
• Recruit family members to help with programming. It’s not too late to get family members who aren’t at work during the program day to help with field trips, games, art activities, reading aloud or any activity where you could use an extra (untrained) adult.
• Make a “good news” call. Boost retention by calling families to report children’s academic or behavioral gains.

Student Engagement

Keeping young people involved in program content and activities is important no matter the age group. It’s especially vital for high school and older middle school youth, whose parents have less influence over their attendance and who juggle other priorities that compete with program attendance. 

These ideas for engaging students are long-term strategies, but now’s a great time to start!

• Set up a culture of high expectations. An environment in which students hold one another accountable will go further than any number of reminders from adults.
• Get students involved in authentic work. You’ll get built-in motivation from project-based learning that delivers products with tangible benefits for the students or the community. Use this checklist with students and staff to gauge participation levels.
• Tap into the power of peer groups. Students are more likely to show up when they know their group needs their creativity and input — and will miss them if they’re gone.
• Support staff to build strong relationships. The quality of youth-adult relationships is an important factor for getting young people to come back. Try using positive youth development approaches and other ways to create a positive environment.

If you haven’t already built these retention tactics into your program, what can you add today? What can you put on the planning list for next year?