April 7, 2021

The school day is the protein-rich foundation in your students’ day. Your 21^st CCLC program is the light and sweet finish. When you align your efforts, everyone leaves the table satisfied. Y4Y’s new Click & Go, Health and Wellness: Partnering With the School Day, has simple tips on forming a delicious pairing.

We’re Hungry! (The Why)

This spring is an important time to commit to intentional collaboration with your school-day counterparts. This collaboration can and should intersect with staff at every level of your program.

• School-day teachers are taking an inventory of the academic recovery each student is facing. Students’ circumstances and their responses to virtual and hybrid education during the pandemic can vary widely, even within a single virtual classroom. Students’ academic gains and losses through this academic year are also likely to vary widely.
• Student health and wellness have suffered universally as well, but schools may be spread thin, given the high priority on academic recovery. Your program can play a key role in supporting students’ health and wellness.
• Funds are available! The Afterschool Alliance produced a webinar, “$122 Billion for Education in American Rescue Plan: What It Means for OST Programs,” on how out-of-school time programs like yours can boost their role in recovery. Your school-day partners will be hungry to work with you to maximize access to this funding on behalf of your mutual students.
• Most districts can’t follow their students through the summer, but your program can. Jointly, you can decide the best approach for each student.

Spread Generously. (The How)

Developing or strengthening partnerships with the school day doesn’t have to be complicated. Just intentional.

• Dust off Y4Y’s Continuous Education course. Partnering with the school day requires timeless strategies. Take the course to earn Basic, Advanced and Leadership Level certificates of completion on this timely topic. Look for tools like the Partnering With Schools Rubric, Getting Members on Your Program Team and Responsibility Checklist for Principal and Program Director for some of the staples you’ll need.
• View your school-day counterparts as partners more broadly. The Y4Y Strategic Partnership course also offers tools like a customizable staff training PowerPoint on Developing Program Champions. Full advocacy and buy-in from these critical players are central to the success of your program.
• Y4Y’s Quick Guide to Initiating a Health and Wellness Partnership With the School Day gives step-by-step partnership guidance. It will help you fill gaps as only out-of-school time programs can. As with most Y4Y tools, think of it as a highly adaptable document if your fact-finding with school-day partners tells you literacy or STEM need the most immediate resources.

Delish PB&J. (The What)

Get ready to implement the best activities your creative, mouth-watering programming juices can muster!

• Consult the Intentional Activity Design Diagram and Activity Planner for strategies to ensure your activities are aligning to the school day.
• Double- and triple-check your efforts with the Continuous Education Through 21^st CCLC Activities Implementation Planning Checklist.
• Remember your role in areas where the school day may need the most support by reviewing the Y4Y Social Emotional Learning Activity Intentional Design Planner and the Planning Health and Wellness Activities Podcast.
• Don’t forget that student voice and choice enhances everything you do. Tools from the new Y4Y course on this subject can help. Start with the Activity Choice Form and Example Activity Schedule.

Unless you’re allergic to peanut butter, the idea of the PB&J pairing of the school day and your program should strike just the right tone. Each is made better with the other right there for balance. And each nourishes students in different but important ways. “Spread” the word!

January 21, 2021

Even before the pandemic struck last year, 21^st CCLC professionals were asking for more guidance on incorporating health and wellness initiatives into their programs to address that glacier of stress their students face. Needless to say, that need has only grown throughout the past year. School districts across the country have been developing their own standards and goals around practices, both big and small, to improve health and wellness. With tips from Y4Y’s new Click & Go, Partnering With the School Day: Health and Wellness, you can team up with your district to give students the tools they’ll need to break away those glaciers of stress and send them out to sea.

Don’t get a cold start. Out-of-school time programs have the great advantage of already having a certain amount of physical activity built into programming. You’re used to thinking about your academic goals, and how they’re being met, but have you taken the same kind of structured approach to setting goals around health and wellness? The Program Self-Assessment of Health and Wellness Offerings tool offers the warm-up you’ll need to start off on the right foot.

Every strong partnership is locked in with strong communication. You’ve set your goals for health and wellness; now, what are your goals for a related partnership? Check out Y4Y tools like the Quick Guide to Initiating a Health and Wellness Partnership With the School Day and Conversation Starters for Partnering With the School Day Around Health and Wellness to get you and your team thinking about key factors to cover with your school-day counterparts. Because you aren’t held to the same academic structures, your district is likely to jump at the chance to join forces and resources to help students concentrate more on exercise and mindfulness in the hours they spend with you.

Not just movin’ and chillin’. Adopting a health and wellness initiative in your program is going to take more than just padding your playground time and adding a daily two-minute meditation. Y4Y offers several new tools to help you develop appropriate activities. Check out the Activity Selection Guide to Support Health and Wellness tool, the Walking Scavenger Hunt Activity Planner, and the podcast, “Planning Health and Wellness Activities,” to jump-start your creative juices once all those goals have been identified.

The big picture. Speaking of podcasts, don’t forget that you can download and listen to Y4Y podcasts while you’re performing your own de-stressing activities, such as cleaning out those closets at home or even watching snowflakes fall. The podcasts in this new Click & Go offer a big-picture perspective, with ideas on how you might connect with school-day staff or take health and wellness on the go. The adults need just as much guidance in this department as students. See the podcast on caring for your staff for pointers.

The beginning of the year is a time when most Americans resolve to be more aware of their health and wellness. By using Y4Y’s new Click & Go to help build self-care into your professional day, every day, you can carry that resolution through the whole year to slowly melt away that glacier of stress for your students and yourself!

December 12, 2019

“Trust is like a mirror, you can fix it if it’s broken, but you will [always see the crack in its] reflection.” ―Lady Gaga

The special role of 21^st CCLC professionals is to act as a center of gravity for the students you serve, bringing together the efforts of families, community partners and school-day educators in a positive and constructive way. Gimmicks, manipulation, and pretending to care don’t work in the long run, and you know that. You want to be the real deal.

Nothing could be more important than earning the authentic trust of your school, community and family partners, but life is full of people who are slow to trust.

Patience is essential to building trust. Trust can’t be rushed. Take the time you need to avoid serious missteps, which can be hard to correct, as Lady Gaga so poignantly observes. Even when time feels so preciously limited, it never hurts to take a beat before you speak or act.

Transparency is also key. Hiding “bad news” from partners has been debunked in personal as well as professional partnerships as ultimately damaging to building true trust. You demonstrate that you have faith in a partner when you honor that partner with the truth.

Remember that keeping your word, following through, and demonstrating that you value relationships are additional key elements to building trust. Y4Y’s Supporting and Engaging Families tool has ideas on when and how to achieve this with families. The Y4Y Partnering With Schools Rubric has insights on what a strong school relationship looks like, and the Partnership Evaluation Rubric in Y4Y’s new Strategic Partnerships course examines healthy elements with community partners. All of these tools can help you build trusting partnerships.

Also at the center of a trusting partnership is mutual understanding of goals. The Responsibility Checklist for Principal and Program Director is a helpful tool to maintaining a trusting partnership with your school-day counterparts. The Memorandum of Understanding Tool spells out considerations you’ll want to take into account at the beginning of a community partnership to maintain trust for the life of that relationship and beyond. Understanding Program Families and other Y4Y family engagement tools set the stage for open dialog on program expectations, illustrating that activity planning is a joint effort.

Finally, a critical practice in building trust is demonstrating that you appreciate the individuality of your partners — that they’re more than their roles. Here’s an example: When you take your child to Dr. Goodhealth, does the doctor call you by your name, or does she call you “mom” or “dad”? If Dr. Goodhealth refers to you only by your role, do you wonder if she leaves the room and refers to your child as “the GI bug in exam room three” instead of the one-and-only “Sarah”? Changing your practices with something as simple as calling students’ parents by their names and learning a little about them will demonstrate that you care about them for more than their role in your life or program, and thereby foster trust. Use the ideas in Y4Y’s Reaching Out to Families tool to help you connect. Also, be aware of the challenges your students’ families may be facing. Understanding and Overcoming Challenges to Family Engagement is a Y4Y tool that can broaden your awareness.

Just like that mirror, never forget that broken trust can and should be repaired.

September 16, 2019

July 16, 2019

Learn from the past to improve the future. How many times have you heard this saying from historians, politicians and even your mother? It’s good advice for 21^st CCLC programs as well!

As you plan your fall program, look back at data you gathered in the spring to pinpoint learning needs for current students and staff members. Learn about students who haven’t been in your program but could use the extra support you provide. School-day teachers can help you identify new prospects, and tell you about academic areas where they see students struggling.

Here are some data types and Y4Y tools that can help you learn from the past:

Program Performance Data

Identifying and Addressing Program Strengths and Weaknesses Training to Go: This ready-to-use presentation can be customized or used “as is.” It offers strategies that help you analyze program performance and build on strengths to improve effectiveness.

Sample Evaluation Guide: This tool describes program-level evaluation, which uses some of the same data you’ll want for fall planning. Look near the end of the guide to find sample focus group questions for parents, students and staff. These questions can also be used in interviews or surveys to help you discover stakeholder reactions to and ideas about your program.

Observation Checklist: This tool helps site leaders understand important areas of student engagement, teacher/facilitator engagement and the physical environment. If you used the checklist during spring or summer program sessions, you already have data to analyze. If you haven’t used this tool, it can guide reflections and discussions when you plan your next session. Be sure to add it to your continuous improvement process tool kit.

Student Needs Data

Three Types of Data: This tool explains school-level, student-level and student voice data.

Survey of Student Needs: Use this tool to check with school-day teachers about student needs in subject areas and specific skills. It also helps with setting priority levels for student needs.

Staff Learning Needs

Intentional Activity Design: Mapping Needs to Activities: As the title suggests, this tool helps staff put data into action. If your staff hasn’t used SMART goals before, introduce this tool when you use the Setting SMART Activity Goals Training Starter. SMART goals are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time bound.

The tools in this list come from three Y4Y courses: Continuous Education, Summer Learning and Managing Your 21^st CCLC Program. To see more free learning resources, go to the Y4Y Learn Overview page and start exploring!