Promoting High Quality Out-of-School Time Programs
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The OST Professional

Afterschool Professionals Learn How to Elevate Every Day Activities for the Youth in Their Programs

On December 1, 2022, Prime Time Palm Beach County hosted its Brunch and Learn where afterschool practitioners who are participants of the Palm Beach County Quality Improvement System attended.

Afterschool Professionals Learn How to Elevate Every Day Activities for the Youth in Their Programs

On December 1, 2022, Prime Time Palm Beach County hosted its Brunch and Learn where afterschool practitioners who are participants of the Palm Beach County Quality Improvement System attended. Attendees began with a welcoming icebreaker that included an introduction where they were told describe their mood according to a pie chart. Cherry pie for those who felt excited, apple pie meaning average, pecan pie for sharp, and sweet and blueberry pie for feeling down. Prime Time offered instruction to attendees on how to elevate activities back in their afterschool program with youth. Attendees then had an opportunity to break out into group settings to implement lesson learned.

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"The goal of today’s event was to work with practitioners to upgrade basic everyday activities that you would normally see in programs to include more positive youth development practices. We want to see how we can understand the children, and how meaningful we can make the activities. When children are engaged in meaningful well-structured activities, they are going to enjoy it a lot more.” - Teal Chance, Director of Quality Improvement, Prime Time Palm Beach County

Practitioners broke into groups led by Prime Time quality advisors. Attendees made lesson plans  and exchanged ideas and feedback. Each group based their lesson plans on what they were given. Some groups had books, and some groups had board games. The objective was to create a hands-on lesson plan based on the supplements they were given.

Tanisha Calixte, assistant director of Discovery Cove Elementary Afterschool Program expressed that lesson planning has always been a challenge for her. She came today to learn skills that she can teach and share with her staff who also was struggling with lesson planning. She appreciated the fact that the training was thorough.

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“I think the biggest take away was how detailed the lesson planning is from icebreakers, to groups, to reflections. One of the things we’ve struggled with is reflection with the youth. Seeing if they liked the activity, if they don’t like the activity, and what we can change. This was a great training for me to take back to my staff, and team to help them be more successful in their groups.” - Tanisha Calixte, assistant director of Discovery Cove Elementary Afterschool Program 

When the attendees were asked what they enjoyed most about the QIS Brunch and Learn they stated that they enjoyed creating lesson plans. They also enjoyed brainstorming with their team, sharing ideas, and listening to all the great lesson plans from the other groups.

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