January 21, 2021

It might be poetic to say social and emotional learning (SEL) just feels right. But where are the data? Consider highlights from Early Lessons From School and Out-of-School Time Programs Implementing Social and Emotional Learning. The scope of the data collection used by the RAND Corporation in the publication of these findings leaves little doubt about the impact social and emotional learning can have, especially when early lessons from implementation are shared. In response to these clearly defined lessons that are most closely linked to successful efforts, you can consult corresponding tools from Y4Y’s Social and Emotional Learning course to thaw a data-driven path to connecting with students on nonacademic areas of growth and development.

• Develop the SEL skills of students and adults. Check out Y4Y’s Rubric for Assessing Social and Emotional Competencies.
• Seek support from your school districts and out-of-school time (OST) intermediary organizations. Check out Y4Y’s Social and Emotional Learning Implementation Planning Checklist and Assigning Roles and Responsibilities tool.
• Develop a common language for SEL that can build shared understanding of the terminology among school and OST staffers. Get on the same page with Y4Y’s Social and Emotional Learning Competencies Match Game and Practice Frameworks for Social and Emotional Learning.
• Set aside staff time for clear and frequent communication. Y4Y offers two Trainings to Go for SEL: Integrating Social and Emotional Learning and Introduction to Social and Emotional Learning.
• Document and formalize SEL routines and practices, such as protected time for SEL in the school/OST schedule, so they can survive staff turnover. See Y4Y’s Delivery Methods for Social and Emotional Learning and Social Emotional Learning Activity Intentional Design Planner.

Be sure to check out all the course tools as your program implements its own SEL initiative, and remember that each tool is customizable to your specific needs. 

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!

January 21, 2021

Are certain students in your program at greater risk of being frozen out of their best possible educational experiences? Last summer, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs published infographics that reveal non-white students (broken out both by American Indian or Alaska Native, as well as Black or African American) with disabilities were at greatest disadvantage. By some measures, this disparity was exponential, and based on 2018 figures when virtual learning hadn’t yet had an impact. It’s important to remember that comparisons in these infographics contrast minority populations with overall figures, which means the contrast with white counterparts is even greater. Consider these specifics:

• In 2018, Black or African American children comprised 13.8% of the population of ages 6-21. Yet, in the school year 2018-19, 17.89% of school-age children with disabilities in the U.S. were Black or African American.
• American Indian or Alaska Native students with disabilities had a 25% dropout rate between the ages of 14 and 21, as compared with the overall dropout rate of 16% of students with disabilities.
• Whereas 29 of 100 students with disabilities are likely to be removed for disciplinary reasons, that number increases to 65 for Black or African American students with disabilities.
• Both populations enjoyed less time in mainstream classrooms than the overall population of students with disabilities.

Using Y4Y’s new Including Students With Disabilities course, consider how your program can melt away learning barriers for students with disabilities. Engage in the full course to better familiarize yourself with the laws and regulations that apply to these students and to develop ideas on shaping your culture and specific activities. But make special note of the tools mentioned below, which have direct application to these disheartening statistics.

Tap into existing information about individual learning needs. You may or may not have access to an individualized education program (IEP) to give you insights into how exactly your student might learn differently, for example. Don’t be afraid to ask for it, using Y4Y’s customizable Sample Letter for IEP Access. Get up to speed on understanding how to read these documents using Y4Y’s Common IEP Sections and Common Acronyms tools.

Engagement is key to reducing the dropout rate. This is true in the school day and even more so in your 21^st CCLC program. Y4Y has many great resources for keeping students engaged, including a new Recruiting and Retaining High School Students Click & Go micro-learning module. You may need to modify or adapt some of the tools within this Click & Go, using tips from the Including Students With Disability course. But always remember that your students with disabilities can and should be surveyed for their interests and strengths, consulted to develop an individual student development plan, and offered leadership opportunities.

Behavior is communication. This was never truer than it is with students whose disabilities are likely to impact how effectively they can verbalize what they’re feeling or experiencing. Every student deserves to be heard. Staff can benefit greatly from the Understanding and Responding to Students With Disabilities Training to Go. This PowerPoint can be adapted to a virtual learning opportunity, where staff can collaborate about current and future students, and develop practices and skills that support students in inclusive out-of-school environments. Knowledge gained about how best to keep your students in the least restrictive environment can easily carry over into the school day when your partnerships are strong.

Did you know that abolitionist Harriet Tubman had epilepsy that resulted from childhood beatings to the head by her master during her years of enslavement? The poet Maya Angelou experienced five years of trauma-induced selective mutism. Olympic athlete Wilma Rudolph overcame infantile paralysis. Award-winning singer Harry Belafonte was profoundly dyslexic, causing him to drop out of high school. These amazing figures did not allow themselves to be frozen for life behind the barriers of disability, but understood the astonishing contributions they could make. You can be the advocate that sees in each of your students that exceptionalism is everywhere, and do your part to offer a warm welcome to all.

December 14, 2020

Just as the COVID-19 virus itself is unlikely to be fully understood for many years to come, so too might the pandemic’s full impact on our youth. While unexpected upsides do exist in some communities, it has been speculated that in the country’s most impoverished communities, the disparity in access and opportunity has only grown. Some districts even report high percentages of families that have been completely unreachable since the pandemic began eight months ago. 21^st CCLC programs need to expect to up their family engagement game across the board, and many Y4Y tools can help.

To begin with, programs should consider familiarizing themselves with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) COVID-19 Parental Resources Kit. While you could simply share the link with families, wading through the resources could be a difficult task for them. Some families may be neglecting their children’s primary care medical needs like vaccinations, or oral care, out of fear of visiting a doctor’s or dentist’s office. Others could be facing dramatic financial insecurity. How can your program help to condense information about available resources, and be a support to your families most in need?

You can offer anonymous family surveys to discover areas of greatest need among your families. Consider customizing Y4Y’s Family Satisfaction Survey to include more questions about their basic needs. For example:

What community resources does your family need assistance connecting with?

• Primary health care for children
• Primary health care for adults
• Food pantries
• Employment assistance
• Child care
• Housing

Next, be sure to be on the same page with your school district regarding all your program’s efforts. School administrators are pursuing many of the same resources on behalf of families, but don’t have the manpower to adequately advocate for every family needing assistance. Use Y4Y’s Partnering With Schools Rubric to consider where your outreach and alignment is most needed. Explore other tools for continuous education, with particular focus on those nonacademic pieces that families need most, like the Responsibility Checklist for Principal and Program Director, bearing in mind that you can customize these tools to reflect the greatest needs of the day.

Finally, get serious about partnerships you might not have ever even envisioned. Some will be in concert with the school district, but your program might have smaller-scale partnership opportunities that aren’t accessible to the district, like with smaller grocery store chains or thrift shops. Customize Y4Y’s Community Asset Mapping tool to brainstorm with your program team about what businesses might actually be flourishing in the current circumstances. Also, begin relationship building with social services in your area, including those that don’t relate directly to children. You can use the Y4Y Collaborative Partner Request Letter to help get the ball rolling, but be sure to check out all the tools available for establishing strategic partnerships in your town.

A great reflection piece is Y4Y’s September Voices From the Field, in which subject matter expert Stacey Owens-Howard addresses the poverty mindset. “The poverty mindset can lead to the belief that it is the responsibility of others to take care of their basic needs.” By working with families, expect your engagement, alignment and partnership efforts to raise your families up throughout the pandemic and deliver them to a promising recovery on the other side.

December 14, 2020

Whether in your program or through previous experiences, every member of your staff is likely to have had the opportunity to know and work with a student with a disability. But one or two experiences, while they may provide some valuable perspective, don’t provide enough knowledge to help you establish a truly inclusive program culture. Y4Y’s new course, Including Students With Disabilities, can help your program lay the foundation for a welcoming environment for all.

The host, Gail, will take you around the “All-In” Playground, where there’s something for everyone. Each jungle gym or playing field presents a different learning opportunity to build your program’s inclusion efforts. You’ll learn about six implementation strategies:

1. Embrace inclusion as a core value.
2. Know federal laws and guidelines on inclusion.
3. Build a foundation for including students with disabilities.
4. Build relationships with families and students.
5. Design an inclusive program.
6. Implement with fidelity.

Watch for helpful features throughout the course, such as a glossary, help line, menu, resources, inclusion guides and tips.

For more advanced learning, complete the Coaching My Staff section of the new course. Discover the three fundamental reasons for professional development around inclusion and advance your knowledge of the mechanics of developing or improving your inclusion efforts.

Don’t forget to peruse the comprehensive tools that accompany the new course. Just a few highlights include

• Including Students With Disabilities Planning Checklist to keep you on track
• Federal State Law Fillable Document to ensure your understanding of relevant state and local laws
• Activity Planner to compare possible design strategies
• Common Acronyms to familiarize yourself with much of the language around inclusion
• Family Engagement Activities Checklist to be sure you’re addressing unique needs of families.

As with any Y4Y course, you’ll earn a certificate of completion for each section, but be sure you’re logged into your account to save your progress! Besides that piece of paper, you’ll come away with confidence in your ability to make all students feel welcome in your program, a better understanding of how and why that’s possible, and best of all, the warm feeling of doing right by each and every student in your program.