TRAINING TOPICS & DESCRIPTIONS
Bullying Prevention (1.5 hours) – Bullying is becoming a national concern. How can we prevent this destructive behavior and protect our children? Based on Christopher Thurber’s model, this interactive workshop will explain the vicious social cycle that reinforces the bullying behavior and shows staff ways to recognize and break the cycle.
Making Positive Discipline a Reality Even with the Most Challenging Children (2 hours) - This workshop will provide participants with a chance to discuss what positive discipline sounds like and feels like in a school age program. How to recognize and address specific behavior issues and what skills are needed to deal with the most challenging behaviors.
Positive Discipline (1.5 hours) - Positive discipline is easier said than done! This workshop will review the philosophy of positive discipline, discuss techniques on how to make the process of discipline work in school age programs and introduce a discipline system known as “123 magic.” This workshop can also be tailored to include how to develop behavior plans and introduce a program constitution.
Seven Steps to Guiding Children's Behavior Without Losing Your Mind (1.5 hours) - This workshop is an introduction to concepts helpful in planning strategies to guide, cope and understand children's behavior.
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Children’s Issues – from ADHD to Homework
ADHD: Debunking the Myth (1.5 hours) - This workshop looks at Barkley’s research and offers strategies on how you can help the child reach his or her educational and social potential.
Autism and You (1.5 hours) - Come learn the facts and realities of autism. This workshop will dispel the myths and discuss what you CAN do!
Child Abuse Prevention & Reporting (1.5 hours) - Participants will be able to: Understand what being a “Mandated Reporter” means. Understand what child abuse is and explain different types of child abuse. Recognize general indicators and behaviors that may suggest child abuse or neglect. Identify physical and behavioral signs of child abuse in both children and the parents/legal guardians. Know what to do to prevent child abuse in the child care setting. Know the procedures to follow when abuse is suspected and how to report suspected abuse.
Children of Divorce (1.5 hours) - Approximately one million children become children of divorce every year. Increasingly, child care providers face the challenge of dealing with children and families who have been divorced or are in the process of divorcing and separating. Participants will have the opportunity to share their stories, discuss the effects of divorce on children and families and get some concrete ideas and suggestions for dealing with these sensitive issues.
Helping Children Cope with Stress (1.5 hours) - This workshop shares a developmental approach to understanding how children experience and cope with the stress of both daily life and catastrophic events.
Homework in After School Programs: Why? Who? When? How? (1.5 hours) - Increasingly, after school programs are being looked at as places where children can get the extra boost they need to succeed academically. This workshop explores why homework matters, who it matters to and whose job it is and when and how to provide homework assistance, as well as offer some guidelines for developing a homework policy that program staff, children and families can live with.
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Active Games (1.5 hours) – Have fun learning new active games for the gym and small spaces.
Cooperative Games (1.5 hours) – Workshop will teach a variety of games that emphasize cooperation and teamwork.
Fun for All: Modifying Games for Inclusion - Participants learn new games and see how they can be modified so that children with varying abilities can be included. The workshop also examines your favorite games and tries to see what changes can be made to accommodate a range of disabilities.
Fun with Fitness: Games and Activities That Target Physical Fitness - Participants take part in games and activities designed for elementary aged children that focus on the basic components of physical fitness (strength, flexibility and cardiovascular endurance). While the activities target fitness, the focus is on having fun. Come ready to play!
Games for YOU!: Using Your Equipment Creatively and to its Full Potential - This is a personalized workshop. Submit an advanced copy of a list of your equipment and available facilities and the instructor will find and/or create games for your group utilizing what you already have.
Indoor and Outdoor Games (1.5 hours) - Workshop will teach a variety of games that can be played indoors or outdoors.
"My Many Colored Days" - Special Themed Field Days for Vacation or Summer Programs (with a nod to the great Dr. Seuss) - A full day of fun that centers on a particular theme, designed for large groups and multi-age participants. Although participants are divided into different colored teams to compete, all activities are designed to be cooperative, inclusive and most important - fun! The event is set up to achieve the main goal of teaching children what it means to be a good sport. Possible themes include, "Red, White and Blue" (activities having to do with our 50 states), "On the Job" (activities having to do with different occupations), "It's a Jungle Out There" (activities having to do with different animals). If your program already has a particular theme, given some time, a special day could be created for your theme.
Ropeless Ropes (1.5 hours) - Provides after school or camp staff with tools needed to provide adventure based learning experiences to their participants without the need of an actual “ropes” course. Learn how to use props made from everyday objects to facilitate team building, communication, creativity and FUN. All activities are adaptable for any group regardless of size, space or special needs.
Quickies and Fillers (1.5 hours) – Do you ever have down time? Of course you do! This hands-on workshop teaches activities that you can do in a pinch with all age groups with little or no props. Perfect for times when you are waiting for the gym to become available or until the last few parents show up!
Using Cooperative Team Building Challenges to Teach Social Skills - Participants take part in small group challenges that are designed to build teamwork, problem solving, communication and social skills. Appropriate for upper elementary and middle school aged children. Explore a variety of different challenges and examine how to use activities as an opportunity to give children direct instruction in how to work as a member of a group.
The Art of Leading Cooperative Games (1.5 hours) - This session is designed to instruct staff on ways to effectively lead and incorporate cooperative games into a center’s daily programming. The program covers topics including but not exclusive to:
-The purpose of games
-Adapting games
-Everyone wins concept
-Challenge by choice
-Creating environments for physical and emotional safety
-Adapting games to fit the needs of all individuals
-Engaging youth in the leadership
-Picking teams
-Reflection
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Art Strategies for Literacy and Learning (1.5 hours) - The Arts provide excellent learning strategies and processes to build literacy and learning capacity through creative problem solving and critical thinking. Learn strategies that will have children motivated and engaged in creating literacy-rich projects.
Literacy in After School (1.5 hours) - A quality after school program is filled with opportunities to promote literacy. This interactive workshop will explore strategies for creating a print-rich environment, recognizing teachable moments for reading, writing, speaking, gathering information and expressing oneself.
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Fun with Math (1.5 hours) - Discuss strategies for brining math into the after school program through the use of games, books, centers and family events. Activities designed to use with children grades K-5 in small or large groups.
Fun with Math: Games And Activities That Also Strengthen Math Skills - Participants take part in active games that can be played by elementary aged children in a gym or outdoor environment. The workshop also examines a variety of craft projects that provide children with hands-on opportunities to utilize and enhance math skills.
Financial Literacy – Workshops tailored for grade groups K – 2; 3 – 5; 6 – 8. Designed to meet cross-curricula performance standards in Social Studies, Economics, Math and Language Arts. Topics include: What is Money?, Where Does Your Money Go?, What is the Cost of Cool?, and many more.
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Healthy Snacking (1.5 hours) - This workshop offers practical tips for children, parents and educators and explores the difference between farm and factory food, food label reading and how to recognize, reduce and replace sugar and sugar substitutes. You will receive nutritional guides and recipes for healthy snacks.
Practical Tips for Nutritional Health and Vitality (1.5 hours) - Instructor will share recommendations from leading experts in the fields of health nutrition and integrative medicine. Informed choices around food and diet are encouraged. Provides tips for optimal health and vitality.
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Program Management & Supervision
Building Positive Relationships with Parents (1.5 hours) - Examines our attitudes and opinions and how they enhance or hinder efforts to develop positive relationships. Presents strategies for good communication and explores opportunities for making connections with parents.
Communication Skills (1.5 hours) - Ongoing and effective communication is essential for building and maintaining good relationships between program partners and staff, between program staff and parents and between program staff and children. This workshop explores roadblocks to communication and provides guidelines for effective communication.
*Connecticut Child Care Course (DPH approved course for child care providers) - This course includes first aid, communicable disease information, child abuse and neglect, safety and choking management and planning for emergencies. Adult infant and child CPR can be added upon request. * Topics may be showcased as individual workshops upon request.
Diversity Awareness (1.5 hours) - This workshop will help you understand the role your identity plays in how you view the rest of the world. It will help you identify blocks that can hinder your viewing another person as an equal human being. You will learn to communicate with diverse populations and to engage others in diversity related issues.
Logic Models for Grant Proposals (4 hours) - Learn how to prepare a logic model to use in grant proposals. This hands-on workshop will take you through the steps necessary to craft the components of a well-defined logic model. Participants mush have prior grant proposal writing experience and come to the workshop with information about a program or project in need of funding.
Making A Cafeteria Work (1.5 hours) - Many school age programs share space in public school buildings and often that space is the cafeteria. This workshop will explore ways to make the cafeteria a warm and inviting environment, what supplies and equipment should be standards in an after school program and how to move tables and use furniture on wheels to make comfortable and diverse program areas available.
Making the Case for Support (4 hours) - Development writing needs to be persuasive without being overly blatant. Discover writing techniques to make your case for support in grant proposals, fundraising letters, capital campaign brochures and other materials used to solicit donations. In this hands-on workshop, participants will prepare an introduction about their organization. Participants should bring the history of their organization including goals and mission, significant accomplishments and impact, descriptions of clientele and services, funding sources, letters of support, testimonies, publications and other evidence of success.
Motivating and Retaining Staff (1.5 hours) – This workshop provides strategies to revitalize and re-energize staff. Learn to successfully lead your staff and keep them motivated throughout the year. Workshop shows how positive reinforcement, rewards, clear expectations and role modeling can help with staff retention.
Professionalism and Professional Ethics in School-Age Care (1.5 hours) - School-age care providers often struggle with their roles as professionals; however, they are part of an important profession where their role includes supporting families and guiding the growth and learning of children during out-of-school hours. Participants will identify the general qualities and characteristics associated with being a "professional" and how it relates to their role in school-age care and what it means to maintain a commitment to professionalism. Participants will also discuss, in depth, the importance of applying professional ethics at all times, including issues of confidentiality and understanding the dangers and damage that gossip can cause in the child care setting.
Safety in After School (2 hours) - Child care providers are responsible for providing a safe environment and ensuring the well-being and protection of the children in their care. This workshop examines how safety policies for modifying the environment, modifying behavior, monitoring children and teaching injury preventive behaviors to children will help the provider offer more safety protection and prevention in every child care situation. This includes indoor and outdoor safety and having an emergency policy and a clear outline of procedures to follow when a child needs immediate medical attention.
Shared Space (1.5 hours) - Struggling to turn a cafeteria into a home away from home for children? The space we create affects the way our children feel and how they behave while they are in an after school program. We can control and manipulate the physical factors that influence behavior, interactions, activity and comfort levels. This workshop will explore room arrangement strategies, creating learning centers and displays that reflect the work and interests of the children.
Staff Supervision (1.5 hours) - Effective supervision of staff involves the ability to set clear expectations, to monitor staff performance and to provide constructive feedback in order to help staff meet programmatic expectations. All of which is integral to maintaining the quality and effectiveness of programming for the children and families in your care. However, being the “supervisor” is not always comfortable for some people, especially when it involves dealing with staff with whom you have become friends and/or staff who are not meeting expectations. This workshop will examine the challenges and the rewards of effectively supervising staff.
Steps to NAA Accreditation (1.5 hours) - This workshop will provide a step-by-step outline of the accreditation process while offering insight and ideas for organizing a team, inspiring staff, developing action plans, working through obstacles and preparing for a visit.
Supervision and Leadership (1.5 hours) - An overview of a year's process of coaching staff through a system of self-evaluation, encouraging staff to set their individual goals and measure their own success in achieving their goals. The workshop also teaches staff to write portfolios that reflect their individual growth.
Team Building (1.5 hours) - This workshop looks at the importance of building a strong team in an after school program. Teams are strengthened through activities that promote open communication between team members, loyalty, trust, reliability, creative thinking, decision making, setting aside egos, extending and seeking help. Participants learn games and activities that promote team building for the staff and the children in an after school program through interactive, exciting easy to lead activities.
Team Building for Staff (1.5 hours) - This session is designed as a fun activity for staff in order to build a sense of community and team spirit for staff persons. Games played during the sessions can certainly be applied to children, but the purpose of this session is focused on building a sense of team within a staff group. Most games will contain low to moderate levels of activity and will include an overall reflection on what was learned from the experience and how it may be applied to the work setting.
The Emerging Leader or “You’re in charge. Now what?” (1.5 hours) Balancing the responsibilities of a SAC Director can be challenging. This workshop explores strategies on how to grow as a professional while working effectively with staff, children, parents, boards, the school and community partners. Participants will learn how to prioritize, get organized and how to access a multitude of resources.
Understanding the NAA Standards (1.5 hours) - This workshop will introduce the NAA quality standards through hands-on group activities. Program staff will become aware of the various standards and will take first steps in identifying where their program is in relation to meeting the individual standards.
Writing for Fundraising (4 hours) - This fast paced, hands-on workshop will help you write simply, clearly and with power so you can always get your point across to your audience. Get acquainted with the basic kinds of writing used by fundraisers including letters in inquiry, proposals, gift acknowledgements, grant proposals and reports, direct mail appeals, brochures and case statements. Bring basic information about your organization such as the history including goals and mission, significant accomplishments and impact, descriptions of clientele and services, funding sources, awards and milestones and a specific writing project in mind.
Writing Tight: Preparing Successful On-Line Grant Applications (4 or 8 hours) - How do you convey your case for support when your need statement and project description can only be 2000 characters in length? Writing tight or to the point and still get the attention of the grant reviewer has never been more crucial. This session provides an outline to use to prepare clear, concise, comprehensive and competitive proposals. The techniques discussed will help you in crafting successful paper and paperless proposal narratives including those to the levels of government as well as foundation and corporations.
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Child Friendly Science Centers (1.5 hours) - Are you ever at a loss as to how to entice your children into the science center? Your science center can be a hands-on fun place that children can’t wait to get into. Learn simple safe experiments that children can do on their own in this center. See an assortment of items to place in the science center and find out where to get them. Talk about what works, what doesn't and find new ways to use the old standbys such as magnets and magnifying glasses.
Exploring Nature: Plants (1.5 hours) - In this workshop staff will learn how to take their children on many scientific adventures while focusing on exploring plant life. The program includes learning how plants grow and their value through fun experiments and activities using the multiple intelligences.
Exploring Nature: Trees (1.5 hours) - In this workshop staff will learn how to take their children on many scientific adventures while focusing on exploring trees. In this program staff will learn how to identify different trees and great activities to make science fun while also connecting learning to children’s literature.
Gooey, Sloppy, Smelly, Really Gross Stuff (1.5 hours) - This will be a hands-on workshop that will make you feel like a kid again. Recipes and instructions as well as clean-up hints will be included.
Kinder-chemists (1.5 hours) - This workshop involves teaching young children to investigate science and form hypotheses about various simple household chemicals. Investigations will include simple experiments with water and more complex experiments with simple acids and bases. The main focus is that you don’t have to have all the answers before beginning the experiment, learn along with the children as they learn from you. The end results of these experiments are often awesome to see, touch and display.
Science Arts (1.5 hours) - Did you know that most cooking activities involve science? Have you ever grown crystals or made play dough? All of these activities cross the science-arts boundary. Learn to make the connection for the children in your care while learning some new fun cooking/science and art/science activities guaranteed to impress your children and open their eyes to new science experiences.
Science Hodgepodge (1.5 hours) - Can be custom made for the group attending. It is a combination of group discussion, hands-on science experiences and lecture. It can include information and experiments about weather, insects, plant and animal lives, simple chemistry and discovery of all kinds. It will include activities to do indoors and outdoors. The workshop covers areas that don't fit into other categories.
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Enhancing Social Competency Skills (1.5 hours) - After school programs offer a perfect setting for facilitating the ongoing development of social competency skills in children and youth. This workshop will provide after school program staff with ideas for implementing and planning social skill activities that encourage skill development through teachable moments and intentional planning.
How to Lead Team Building Activities for Youth in Grades 3 and Higher (1.5 hours) - This session is designed to provide staff with the necessary information to effectively implement and execute team building into the core curriculum of their program. The workshop offers many examples that will not only help build a sense of team with the staff, but will also shed light on the purpose of team building games and how to appropriately lead such games. Discussion topics include:
-Staff vs. participant purpose
-How often team building games should be implemented
-How to adapt and modify games
-Modeling
-Staff’s leadership role in team building activities
-Adapting games to fit the needs of all individuals
-Engaging youth in the leadership
-How reflection and introduction help to bring out purpose
Involving Children & Youth in Curriculum Planning (1.5 hours) - This workshop encourages staff to use the ideas of children and youth as a basis for curriculum planning and introduces tools to stimulate the children and youth to express what they want to learn and do.
Service Learning (1.5 hours) - Connecting service learning to developmental skills and positive values and also the diverse roles youth can take with Community Service. Workshop will examine creative ways young people can bring their talents, abilities and leadership capabilities to their community.
Youth in Action: Expanding Opportunities for Youth to be in Leadership Roles (1.5 hours) - Young people have amazing skills, abilities and passion for issues that affect them in their local communities. Learn about strategies for engaging more young people, creating stronger youth-adult partnerships and finding resources for supporting youth in leadership roles. Youth across the state are already actively involved as advocates, peer tutors, youth council members, philanthropists, facilitators for youth-led workshops and many other roles. Young people are transforming our neighborhood organizations, schools and communities. Help your youth group expand their opportunities to practice their leadership skills as they work to build healthier communities for all of us.
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After School Guide to the Arts (1.5 hours) - Builds provider skills and understanding of the arts and a repertoire of activities that are “ready to go.”
Music Improvisation (2 or 3 hours) - The 2-hour workshop includes progressive activities that enable participants to develop and experience their musical self-expression in a gentle and fulfilling manner. The 3-hour workshop has more time for observations, questions and ideas to be discussed as the workshop unfolds and includes more instruction on how to present the activities to children and youth. No prior musical experience is necessary to participate in either workshop.
Music, Movement, Visual Arts and Drama (1.5 hours) - Explore a range of ways music, movement, visual arts and drama can enrich after school programs and provide physical and emotional outlets, build collaborative skills that enrich curriculum, build literacy skills that reach different learners and provide strategies that diminish difficult behavior.
Additional topics may be arranged upon request.