October 24, 2017

Whether your 21st CCLC program is new or well-established, new students, families and teachers arrive every year. Refresh your messaging often to catch attention. Every spring, summer and fall, reach out with a message that pops and bring in new students, families, volunteers and partners. 

Tip 1. Target messages to each audience. Each group has a different perspective, and wants you to address its concerns. Once you have identified the students who meet your admission criteria, create invitations and messages that will appeal to them and other stakeholders

- Students want to have fun while they learn outside of school. They want activities that respond to their interests and look different from the school day.

- Families want their children to continue learning, do their homework and enjoy social interactions.

- Teachers want their students to get targeted support and make connections between academics and everyday life.

- Community members want young people to engage with local activities and issues in productive ways. And, they want to know how they can support better educational outcomes.

Tip 2. Deliver your messages through multiple and appropriate channels. Do quick surveys of stakeholder groups to find out which method each prefers.

- Print media, such as newspaper stories and flyers, can help you reach families and the community. Use languages other than English, so you touch everyone.

- Broadcast media, such as television and radio, also reach community and family members. Be sure to invite foreign language outlets to learn about your program.

- Be active online. Keep your website up to date, and be smart about using Facebook, Twitter and other social media to promote program enrollment deadlines and special events. Remember to protect student privacy, and check with the school or district about getting release forms before posting photos or videos that show students.

- Get into the community. Set up information tables or displays at street fairs, and outside grocery stores or at farmers markets. Visit families in their homes or at gathering places such as churches and cultural festivals.

Tip 3. Live the messages every day. The positive environment you create will keep students coming and encourage family engagement!

- Offer professional learning events for staff and partners to help them support positive youth development adult-child relationship building, student voice and choice, and 21st century skill development.

- Welcome family and community members to your advisory board and program planning team, and hold special events that bring everyone to the program to celebrate student learning and accomplishments.

- Hold special celebrations that bring everyone to the program to witness student learning and accomplishments.

Resources

Remember, although everything here comes from the Summer Learning course, it also applies to school-year programs.

Creating Positive Environments for Summer Learning
Get research-based tips for supporting student engagement and positive youth development.

Youth Recruitment Planner
You and your colleagues can get into the nitty-gritty of intentional recruitment with this tool.

Facilitating Positive Youth Development Training to Go
This ready-to-use presentation can be customized to your needs for professional learning with staff and partners.

Developing 21st Century Skills Training Starter
Everyone can benefit from better skills in communication, collaboration, critical thinking and creativity. This training starter can help staff and partners learn to support skill development for students.

September 21, 2017

You’ve worked hard to make your 21st CCLC program feel like a second home to children and youth. So how do you ensure that their families feel the same way? Try the three R’s of family engagement: Be a resource, be a refuge and help families refuel! 

These tips and the linked tools can help you put family-friendly practices in place right away. Also be sure to visit the Y4Y Family Engagement course!

- Assess family needs. When family members pick up students, ask them to complete a brief survey or have a brief conversation to learn about areas where they need help. 

- With your program team, map community assets. Find agencies and organizations that target unmet needs. 

- Set up a family information center. Offer brochures and application forms for free or low-cost services, such as food pantries, housing support and children’s health insurance. Put information and forms where family members will see them when they pick up their children. 

- Hold an evening or weekend information fair. Invite students’ families and people from the service agencies and organizations to come learn about one another. Be prepared to help family members complete applications or schedule appointments. 

- Start by welcoming families, learning their names, using translators if they speak a language other than English, and doing other things to build trust.  

- Help families learn about the school system. Families want their children to do well in school, but cultural or personal factors may make them reluctant to approach school personnel. Help families understand education jargon, how the school system works and how to get help for challenges their children face. 

- Make connections to the school day. You see family members several times a week, so you can show parents what students have done on their homework, and suggest ways family members can help continue the learning at home. Make an opportunity for a casual, friendly introduction to a school-day teacher or principal. 

- Offer a safe space. Work with your facility manager or a local partner and local law enforcement to offer a community recreation space that adults can share with children. 

- Nurture social and emotional connections. Hold regular (perhaps monthly) events such as coffee hours where families, program staff and school-day staff can get acquainted in a relaxed setting.

- Create opportunities for physical activity. Arrange for occasional yoga, dance or exercise classes that welcome all family members, including seniors and those with mobility issues. 

- Feed the intellect. Tell families about free or low-cost adult education and job training programs in the community. Connect parents and students to workshops about college financial aid and testing.

- Recognize financial needs. Coordinate with schools and local employers to hold a job fair, so family members can learn about local work opportunities. Provide information about housing support, unemployment benefits and other programs that help to meet basic needs. 

A Word About Respect

In all that you do, treat students and their families with dignity and respect. Take time to hear their voices, and to understand their strengths as well as their needs. Whenever possible, schedule program events at times that are convenient for families, and coordinate with school-day activities and community events. Respecting others never goes out of style. In fact, it might be considered the fourth R of family engagement — resource, refuge, refuel and respect

September 21, 2017

A new school year has started, and your students are that much closer to making decisions about the future. You can help them be ready!

Did you know that when ACT analyzed 2016 test results, it found only one in four U.S. high school seniors are college and career ready?¹ By focusing on a mix of academics and employability skills,² your 21st CCLC program can provide fantastic opportunities for students to learn and apply knowledge and skills, interact with others to identify and solve problems, and develop workplace skills such as communication and resource management — all skills required for college and career success. Y4Y is here to help you kick-start your efforts! Here are three things you should know before diving in:

1. College and career readiness has importance for all age groups — yes, even the youngsters!

In elementary school, responses like “I can do that!” and “Let me try!” are common as students engage in hands-on activities. These attitudes will serve them well as they get closer to entering college and careers. So give them opportunities to work and play with ideas and materials related to various careers (for example: robots!). 

Consider using career stations for grades K-5. For grades 6-12, use the Y4Y Exploration Toolkit to help students explore careers that match their interests and strengths. 

2. Projects offer a powerful way to prepare students for college and career success.

This is all about tapping into young people’s natural excitement and curiosity to help them gain academic and 21st century skills connected to possible college and career paths. Try these project ideas to start: 

- Service learning. Connect youth to projects that have positive impacts on local communities.

- The arts. Give students opportunities to work with teaching artists, to connect with local arts organizations, to lead or join a project team, and to showcase what they learn (in music, theater, dance or visual arts) for the larger community.

- Citizen science. Students can support real projects by becoming citizen scientists and using the skills professional researchers use, such as observing and recording data. For example, they can help map the surface of Mars by joining NASA’s Be a Martian project.  

Use Y4Y’s Tips for Programs for more ideas.

3. Families want to know about low- and no-cost ways to help children succeed in school and beyond.

Nature walks, snack preparation, trips to the library, late-night talks about the trials and tribulations of playing team sports — through simple activities like these, families can help their children explore their world. Every day offers hidden opportunities to use and practice reading, math and other skills! Tell families about simple things they can do to prepare their children for college and career success. 

Use Y4Y’s Tips for Families for 10 practical ideas to share with families.

As a 21st CCLC practitioner, you can use program activities to help young people see and imagine career possibilities, understand how to prepare for those careers, and gain and practice skills they will need to pursue their dreams. Y4Y is here to help. Start with the tools linked in this blog, and be sure to visit the Y4Y College and Career Readiness Course.

References:
1. ACT. (2016). The Condition of College and Career Readiness 2016. Available at https://www.act.org/content/dam/act/unsecured/documents/CCCR_National_2016.pdf 
2. U.S. Department of Education, Office of Career and Technical Education. (n.d.). Employability Skills Framework: What Are Employability Skills? Available at http://cte.ed.gov/employabilityskills/index.php/framework 

July 10, 2017

You probably know about the Coaching My Staff section of every Y4Y course. It contains training materials that address key topics within the course. The materials are ready to use as is or customizable to your needs. Here’s a quick introduction to what’s available if you haven’t tried them yet.

Training Starters

Each Training Starter is a two or three-page Word file (also available in PDF) that provides prepared content you can customize, and helps you organize and manage the event. The template includes a set of objectives and important information to include during the training — this is structured to use as a script or as a jumping-off point for the content you want to deliver. You can determine how to open the training and introduce the topic, then wrap up and close the session. 

Trainings to Go

Trainings to Go are hour-long training plans that include a PowerPoint, handouts and training guides. These materials can be downloaded and used as is; they provide all the information for a fully developed learning session on a specific topic area. You can invite participants, print handouts and set up a meeting space, then follow the prepared presentation. If you want to expand or customize the content, you can revise the PowerPoint version to fit your needs. A PDF version of each training is also available.

Find the Training Materials

You can get to topic-specific materials by three routes:

1. On the Y4Y home page, in the navigation area select Train Your Staff from the Learn tab. From this landing page, select a course topic to go to a page that has links to topic-specific Trainings to Go, Training Starters and Tools. 
2. On the Y4Y home page, in the navigation area select Courses from the Learn tab. From the Courses landing page, click on the topic you want to address. When you reach the Course landing page, scroll down to find and click on Coaching My Staff. This landing page presents a short overview that suggests steps for designing your training events. The Training Starters and Trainings to Go materials are located and described within this part of each course. You can also access the materials from the Resources tab within the lesson screen.
3. On the Y4Y home page, in the navigation area select Course Tools from the Resources tab. On this landing page, click on the topic you want to address. When the list of tools for that topic opens, you can find the Training Starters and Trainings to Go under the Train heading
 

June 8, 2017

Whether or not you offer a summer learning program, you can partner with families to use strategies that keep children’s brains active during the summer. We know that all students run the risk of summer learning loss, and children in low-income communities have the highest risk. Here are some ideas to involve your 21st CCLC families in helping students hold on to the skills they learned in the past school year. 

1.    Connect With Family Members

Work with school-day teachers to create tip sheets so families have ideas about how to help their students. Then, deliver the tip sheets when you can have a conversation, so you make personal connections and can answer questions. 

•    Meet at the program site. If you operate a summer learning program, provide the tip sheets when family members pick up their children at the end of the day, or during a family event that’s tied to program activities.

•    Make home visits. If you don’t run a summer program, plan a short visit to deliver the summer learning tips.

•    Meet in the community. If you hold a community-based event, use email, a postcard or phone call to invite families to come pick up their summer learning tips. You might do this at a book swap (see below) or when you have an informational event — perhaps at a local street fair or a local market.

2.    Promote Literacy

When students lose reading ability over the summer, they rarely catch up during the school year, and summer losses can really add up. By fifth grade, if learning stopped over the summers, a student may be two or more grade levels behind. Here are ways that families and programs can help students maintain their reading and writing skills:

•    Share books with families and encourage reading out loud every day. Your program can hold a monthly book swap — arrange a place and time (just half a day) when families can bring books to trade so everyone gets something new to read and enjoy. Ask a community partner to provide the location, and even to conduct a book drive to expand the reading choices. 

•    Use story starters to encourage writing and reflection about summer activities. In your program or at home, a sheet of paper with simple prompts can start student writing about summer activities. Thinking of family members as the audience, students can “tell about today’s adventure” or “explain what you learned when…” At the dinner table, everyone can read the story and discuss the activity.

3.    Practice Math Skills

When families know which math skills their students need to reinforce — fractions, multiplication, measurement or something else — they can involve students in everyday activities that require math:

•    Do the math when grocery shopping and preparing meals. Students can help their families by reading price tags and nutrition information to make good decisions at the grocery store. When cooking together, students can learn how to read recipes and measure ingredients, and how to expand or reduce recipe amounts to serve a different number of people. 

•    Make good home fix-up decisions. Students can help adults do the math to answer questions like these: How much paint does it take to give my bedroom a new look? How much lumber should we buy to fix the fence in the back yard? 

Y4Y Resources

Family Engagement course. Take advantage of this free online course to brush up on many aspects of engaging with families. Don’t miss the Coaching My Staff section if you want ready-to-use materials for your fall training.
 
Family Engagement Strategies. This tool includes some of the above ideas, and more. 

Family Engagement Implementation Planner. This tool offers strategies for welcoming family involvement in your program.