The Y4Y Insider, January 2021: Break the Ice!

The Y4Y Insider - January 2021

Break the Ice!

This favorite expression, literally relevant at this time of year, carries a dual implication: a coldness has made something unreachable, and forging through barriers promises great, deeper discoveries. You can break the ice to recruit and retain those elusive high school students using Y4Y’s new Click & Go. Did you know that minority students with disabilities are more likely than their white counterparts to be frozen behind learning barriers? Melt those barriers away with Y4Y’s new course and tools on including students with disabilities. Another important program resource that might be in deep freeze is data on the benefits of social and emotional learning (SEL). Y4Y’s course tools on SEL can help you chip away at that data block to uncover the true benefits of SEL practices. Student health and wellness go hand in hand with SEL, and Y4Y’s new Click & Go will help you partner with the school day on this important effort and thaw even the thickest glaciers of stress.

New Content on Y4Y

Check out these TWO new Click & Go’s today! Each includes a mini-lesson, podcasts and tools on a hot topic in out-of-school time.

Partnering With the School Day: Health and Wellness Click & Go

Make the most of your mutual resources and goals to foster lifelong healthy habits in your students, and support your staff’s wellness in the bargain.

Recruiting and Retaining High School Students Click & Go

Discover where to find the students who need you the most, recruit them to your program, and keep them engaged to build their confidence and their readiness for the world.

Do you have virtual programming that makes you especially proud? Y4Y wants to hear from you!

One day the pandemic will be behind us, but virtual learning, in one form or another, is here to stay! Y4Y is developing a brand-new course on the subject, and we’re excited to hear about 21^st CCLC programs that have found special ways to excel in an online environment. How did you keep your favorite 21^st CCLC program elements? What are your keys to engaging students? What were your greatest challenges? What words of wisdom can you share? Please join us for a listening session on Feb. 25! Email Y4Y to be a part of this engaging process, or if you’re unavailable, feel free to send a few details about your program and we’ll be in touch to hear all about it individually.

Let Us Serve You Better!

We hope you’ll consider taking three minutes out of your day to complete this Y4Y Insider feedback form. You might be thinking, “you can’t make me” and you’d be right! But this is your chance to shape future issues and get more of what you’re looking for.

Upcoming Webinars

Meeting 21^st CCLC ESSA Academic Requirements in Virtual and Hybrid Environments (Three-Part Series)

Jan. 26, 27 and 28, 1-3 p.m. ET

This three-part series explores strategies, techniques and tools designed specifically for virtual and hybrid out-of-school time settings. Make sure your efforts align with the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA).

Including Students With Disabilities (Two-Part Series)

Feb. 9 and 11, 1-3 p.m. ET

In this two-part webinar series, you’ll build your knowledge of critical legislation that relates to students in your program, what your program can do globally to embrace and prepare for inclusion, and strategies and resources for supporting specific students.

Family Engagement (Two-Part Series)

Feb. 23 and 24, 1-3 p.m. ET

In this two-part series, explore best practices for developing and improving relationships and gain free resources and ideas for engaging families in both virtual and in-person settings, fostering a family-friendly environment, serving diverse family needs and planning activities that reflect these renewed priorities.

Do you have questions about Y4Y webinar registration, sign-in, participation or certificates? Send your queries to this email address for the quickest response: Y4YWebinars@seiservices.com.

Special Opportunities

Note: Y4Y doesn’t provide certificates of participation for the webinars mentioned below.

Grants Available

The New York Life Foundation 2021 Aim High Grant competition recognizes excellence in the middle school afterschool field. Applications close on Feb. 1. Visit the Afterschool Alliance to learn more about this opportunity.

Summer Symposium Save the Date

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Elementary and Secondary Education is pleased to announce the Nita M. Lowey 21^st Century Community Learning Centers Grant Program 2021 Summer Symposium. This conference, hosted by the Office of School Support and Accountability, will convene virtually July 20-22, 2021.

The virtual Summer Symposium is a three-day event focused on providing state education agencies and their grantees with relevant plenary sessions and workshops on successful strategies in implementing and managing all components of a program.

Additional information about Summer Symposium details, including registration materials, will be available in early spring. Be sure to save the date!

Celebrate the Next Landing on Mars!

Come celebrate the landing of the Mars Perseverance Rover on Feb. 18! Your program can participate in the Mars Student Challenge with hands-on STEM enrichment activities. Some can be done by students at home using everyday materials, such as Make a Cardboard Rover, and some can be done as virtual demonstrations, such as Make a Moon Crater (Perseverance will be landing in Jezero Crater). Fun, short videos explain key ideas. You’ll get a weekly newsletter leading up to the landing and access to video conversations with mission scientists and engineers highlighting how their work relates to the activities. Throughout the five-week challenge, you can submit student questions and work that could be featured during NASA broadcasts leading up to and on landing day. During landing week, Feb. 16-18, tune in with your students to participate in Q&As with mission experts. All these activities can be used to keep the learning going as Perseverance explores the surface of Mars through this summer (and beyond).

The fun starts on Thursday, Jan. 21, at 8:30 a.m. Pacific Time, with a live STEM enrichment training tailored for you and the out-of-school time community. Frontline staff, counselors, and STEM coordinators will get entry-level, practical training for leading hands-on activities and tips for implementing the Student Challenge in your program. NASA will provide an additional half-hour “bonus activity” for those who can spend the time. The training will be recorded for those who can’t join live.

Register soon to get the details and be sure to list your registration affiliation as “Out-of-School Time Program.” Experts welcome this opportunity to include diverse learners in the NASA family. See you on Mars!

NASA STEM Stars

Visit the Y4Y NASA page and short STEM Stars video to learn more about upcoming events for students ages 13+ to connect with subject matter experts at NASA and more.

Archived Webinar

LIVE With Y4Y

Bringing Mindfulness to Out-of-School Time

Mindfulness is more important than ever — for both staff and students.

Note: “LIVE” is Y4Y’s acronym for “Learning in a Virtual Environment.” LIVE With Y4Y is our new name for what we previously called Showcase Webinars.

State Coordinators Corner

Consistently for the past couple of years, Y4Y has heard from practitioners what high priority social and emotional learning (SEL) initiatives are. Whereas many priorities prior to the pandemic have shifted to the back burner, addressing SEL needs has come to even greater prominence for 21^st CCLC professionals in recent months.

One of this month’s Y4Y blog posts, “Breaking Through the Data Block With Social and Emotional Learning,” highlights key takeaways from a report from the RAND Corporation on two years of SEL implementation in out-of-school time in six different communities around the country. Not surprisingly, the Early Lessons From School and Out-of-School Time Programs Implementing Social and Emotional Learning focus sharply on organizations coming together at the outset of any initiative to establish consistent language, practices and partnerships. State education agencies can prove an invaluable resource in this arena. How can your state address these central keys for success?

Establish a community-wide definition of SEL, shared terminology, and guidance on what skills and practices to focus on.
Create mutually reinforcing SEL practices across the school and OST program day.
Confront the perceived and actual power difference between schools and OST providers that share a building. Develop ways to ensure mutual respect and effective collaboration on SEL efforts, such as strengthening space-sharing arrangements so OST staff members can deliver SEL instruction in a quiet environment; hiring full-time, on-site OST managers who can attend school meetings; and establishing an SEL steering committee with representation from both school and OST staffers.
Advocate for modifying SEL curricula so that instruction is culturally responsive and relevant to all students. (The authors of the RAND report assert that curriculum developers and experts at the district and out-of-school time intermediary organization — not frontline instructors — should make these modifications.)

The full report is readily available, and includes guidance for state education agencies and other policymakers around optimal use of resources for the greatest impact on students.

On another topic: Y4Y is seeking out programs that have demonstrated excellence in adapting to a virtual environment to consult on development of a new course on the subject. Please contact Y4Y today if you have any grantees in mind for this important topic!

Voices From the Field

Pro Tips for Engaging Youth in Virtual Programs

Y4Y recently caught up with Jen Siaca Curry, E.D., a subject matter expert in virtual learning. Dr. Curry and the team she founded at Change Impact have trained over 4,500 educators and designed organizational and program strategies for more than 20 nonprofits, school districts and universities. She has experience with innovative future-of-work training programming, and in designing and operating afterschool programs. Dr. Curry has served as a featured author and speaker on equity in youth work for the National AfterSchool Association, Afterschool Alliance, and Afterschool Matters journal. She is vice president of the New York State Network for Youth Success board of directors and an adjunct professor in youth studies at the City University of New York School for Professional Studies.

Listen to the podcast.

Read the transcript.

Missed last month's podcast? Listen here!

In the inaugural Voices From the Field podcast, Tara Cox talks about undoing “right-answer thinking.”

Listen to the podcast.

Read the transcript.

Creative Program Ideas

Feb. 3 is World Read Aloud Day. This favorite activity has become an essential tool to connect educators and students virtually. Break the ice with favorite celebrities participating this year!

Feb. 4 is National Thank a Mail Carrier Day. Everyone should get to know their mail carrier by name. Maybe yours could even make a cameo appearance in your program!

Feb. 14 is Valentine’s Day. But wait! Check out what science has to say about our physiological response to those heart-shaped boxes of chocolates!

Feb. 20 is World Day of Social Justice. Help students understand how the U.S. can use its buying power to promote fairness around the world. What sorts of scenarios might they share when they use their own “social capital” to help someone else?

Feb. 24 marks 439 years since Pope Gregory XIII corrected the Julian calendar, to which Protestant countries warmed slowly. Did you know that at age 21, this meant George Washington’s birthday changed from Feb. 11, 1731, to Feb. 22, 1732? How would students feel if their birth date were changed?

Caption This Image!

Thanks for playing! Here are our winners for the 21^st CCLC-inspired caption for last month’s image from the Y4Y Including Students With Disabilities course:

"You survived 2020!" Alicia from CA
"Seeing young people succeed brings a smile to everyone's face." Stan from WV

Your turn! Submit your program-inspired caption ideas for this image from the new Y4Y Click & Go, Recruiting and Retaining High School Students. Responses will be published in next month’s issue.

Tech Tip

Y4Y Is Here to Help

The Department's Y4Y TA Team is here to support you! Check out these three avenues for reaching out:

Do you have questions about Y4Y webinar registration, sign-in, participation or certificates? Send your queries to this email address for the quickest response: Y4YWebinars@seiservices.com.
Trouble with your Y4Y account, website navigation or course completion certificates? Stop by the Y4Y Help Desk.
Did you know Y4Y has a suggestion box? We welcome your ideas, big or small, on website or newsletter content. Send us those brilliant insights today!

Featured Download

From one of Y4Y's new Click & Go's, download the mini lesson “Partnering With the School Day: Health and Wellness.”

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