To build awareness of research and promising practices in the field of school-age child care, the National Center on Afterschool and Summer Enrichment (NCASE) has shared Adverse Childhood Experiences and the School Age Population: Implications for Child Care Policy and Out-of-School Time Programs.

This research explores the effect of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) have on youth, trauma-informed practices, and healing-centered engagement, and the role out-of-school time plays in supporting children who are dealing with ACEs.

ACEs are defined by Child Trends as "potentially traumatic events that can have negative, lasting effects on health and well-being. These experiences range from physical, emotional, or sexual abuse to parental divorce or the incarceration of a parent or guardian."

The impact of ACEs on the development of children and youth become a growing concern in recent years. Though research links social determinants such as poverty and racism as potential contributing factors, ACEs can influence the lives of children from any culture or socio-economic background.

The Effect of ACEs on School-Age Children

ACEs include physical abuse and neglect; sexual abuse; emotional abuse and neglect; intimate partner violence, substance abuse, mental illness and violent treatment of a mother within a household; parental separation or divorce; and an incarcerated household member.

School-age children experience gradual, yet complex development during both early and middle childhood. Though brain development is robust during this time, coping with and/or surviving trauma or unsettling, scary experiences with a brain not yet capable of interpreting, processing, and understanding these experiences can result in poor decisions, short attention span, and lack of communication.

Research asserts that, when affected by trauma, the school-age child's brain adapts in ways to support its survival. Adaptations can manifest as behavior problems and are characterized by flight, fight, or freeze-the stress response framework.

Flight: Withdrawal, escaping, running away, self-isolation, avoidance.
Fight: Hyperactivity, verbal aggression, oppositional behavior, limit-testing, physical aggression, "bouncing off the walls."
Freeze: Subdued demeanor, watchfulness, looking dazed, daydreaming, forgetfulness, shutting down emotionally.

With spring in full swing and the temperature starting to warm up in many parts of the country, we have just completed our webinar series focused on summer learning program preparation. The series was co-hosted by the Afterschool Alliance, National AfterSchool Association (NAA), and National Summer Learning Association (NSLA) and focused on two recent releases made possible by the generous support of  The Wallace Foundation: " Getting to Work on Summer Learning: Recommended Practices for Success, 2nd Ed." and  the Summer Learning Toolkit. In case you missed it, here's a recap of what we covered!

Part I: Getting to Work on Summer Learning & Summer Learning Toolkit

The first webinar of the series took a comprehensive look at the report, "Getting to Work on Summer Learning: Recommended Practices for Success," which was based on the evaluation of five districts' summer programs and explored the effectiveness of voluntary, district-led summer learning programs offered at no cost to low-income, urban, elementary students; Jennifer McCombs from the RAND Corporation talked through main takeaways from the report, including some of the challenges that programs face and factors they need to consider when developing a summer program. She highlighted some of the key recommendations from the report for programs around:

Part II: Summer Learning Toolkit-A Deeper Dive: Keys to Staffing & Professional Development

In the second part of our webinar series, we took a closer look at staffing and professional development to examine how to hire and train the best possible staff that suits the specific climate, culture, and goals of your summer program. The Learning Agenda gave an overview of the research highlighted in the toolkit that speaks to the important role staffing and professional development plays and offered samples of and guidance on staffing models and job descriptions; samples and tip sheets related to high-quality professional development; and other relevant professional development materials, including staffing MOUs, examples to help hire staff, and examples of staff handbooks.

Part III: Summer Learning Toolkit-A Deeper Dive: Creating Site Climate and Culture

With the focus based off of a survey of attendees of the first webinars in the series, the final chapter in our Summer Learning Toolkit series took a deeper dive into resources and best practices around creating a warm and welcoming site environment that best allows kids to thrive and equips your staff with the training and tools necessary to be supported in carrying out this mission. The Learning Agenda walked us through the Site Climate section of the toolkit, underscoring specific sample tip sheets and strategies, including staff handbooks, site leadership guidance, and training agendas. We also heard from Kelly Bauman, the Director of Expanded Learning in the Rochester City School District; Rochester is also a part of the Summer Learning Project that helped inform the creation of the Toolkit. Kelly gave a clear summary of the ways that their program, ROC Summer, has been able to provide safe, engaging, high-quality summer learning programming by incorporating specific and intentional routines, student supports, staffing models, and other methods outlined in the Summer Learning Toolkit to promote a positive environment for youth and staff.