Health, Safety and Nutrition
Overview: This workshop covers healthy and safe nutrition, disease control and reporting, medication safety, safe playgrounds, and child abuse reporting.
Introduction to Human Relations: Relationships in School-Age Settings
Overview: Working in a school-age program involves many types of relationships. Knowing the various types of relationships and the issues surrounding each of them will help school-age staff have a positive work experience. Their ability to interact well within those relationships will impact the children and families also. This workshop explores the relationships, some of their potential issues, and the importance of learning how to influence a positive outcome.
Introduction to Human Relations: Team Building
Overview: The ability to work in a group is an essential skill for effectively working in a school-age environment. Building a successful school-age program requires the building of a team. School-age staff who explore and reflect on the characteristics of team membership can increase their ability to work productively as members of a team. This workshop will focus on ways to work well together as a team.
Introduction to Human Relations: Communication
Overview: Good relationships are based on good communication. Good communication is a two-way process. Learning to be a good listener and a good sender are skills that can help us to make better and more effective environments for our own work and for the children, youth, and families in our school-age program. These important skills are the focus of this workshop.
Introduction to Human Relations: Conflict Resolution
Overview: Conflict is an inevitable part of life. School-age care is no exception. Learning skills and effective methods of dealing with conflict will reduce anger and frustration, and it will enable us to more effectively relate to others. It will improve relationships. It will make better and more effective environments for our own work and for the children and youth in our programs. This workshop focuses on skills and methods for use in conflict resolution.
Professionalism
Overview: As someone who works with children and youth, you are part of an important and growing profession. How you view yourself and portray yourself to others reflects how society views our profession. This workshop explores how you look, sound, and act. These are all part of becoming a professional.
Introduction to Child & Youth Development
Overview: This workshop provides a brief overview of the developmental stages through which children progress.
Indoor and Outdoor Environments
Overview: This workshop focuses on developing and planning indoor and outdoor environments in school-age care. The spatial environment, both indoor and outdoor, has incredible impact on children and their learning and behavior, as well as impacting the teachers’ and staff’s ability to complete their responsibilities.
Activities
Overview: The term “activities” is complex when considering out-of-school programming for school-age children. This workshop explores ideas for types of activities for children, guidelines for choosing appropriate activities, and how to find community and media resources for further ideas. It focuses on one method of creating and organizing activities, the Project Approach.
Planning Daily Routines
Overview: This workshop is designed to help school-age staff learn the rudiments of daily routine planning.
Group Management
Overview: This workshop is designed to help staff in school-age programs learn the basics of effective group management from taking control of the group to natural/logical consequences.
About the Curriculum
Afterschool 101 provides fifteen hours of basic training for individuals new to working in school-age program settings. The settings may include before and after-school programs, parks and recreation, summer youth enrichment, non-profit drop-in facilities and many others. In all types of programs for school-age children and youth, staff should be well-trained and knowledgeable. The audience for this curriculum is the new staff member who has little or no experience in a school-age program setting who will be working directly with the participants. By providing a good foundation to staff, they will be more effective, dedicated and loyal employees. More importantly, well-trained staff have a positive influence in the lives of the young people participating in school-age programs.
The National AfterSchool Association (NAA) has established standards for the quality of programs for youth. This curriculum utilizes the NAA standards and other research in training school-age staff. Our goal is to provide training in practices that lead to “stimulating, safe and supportive programs for young people in their out-of-school time.”
Workshops stand alone or may be used sequentially. The curriculum is written broadly so that it can be used by licensed and unlicensed programs. It is recommended that the workshop presented in the Afterschool 101 Curriculum be supplemented with specific information that pertains to your program. For example, you may want to offer the professionalism workshop and follow it with your program’s specific policies and procedures.
Innovative Learning Solutions 