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This toolkit is designed to help state system planners from early childhood, Head Start, and schools create plans for a successful transition to kindergarten. It includes materials like a transition and alignment summit guide, a questionnaire on transition practices, and research and resources on why transition matters and how to engage families. This information could be helpful for out-of-school time system planners, who could be important partners in transition planning.
This website offers a variety of technical assistance activities and supports to build system capacity to improve outcomes for young children with disabilities and their families. The Practices Section may be especially helpful to state administrators as it offers: (1) a guide to the process of implementing evidence-based practices statewide, based on work done implementing the Pyramid Model in 25 states; plus (2) tools such as checklists and practice guides to help practitioners and families improve their skills, plan interventions, and self-evaluate their use of recommended practices. Although targeted at supporting young children, most of the underlying principles and procedures apply to school-age children too.
This implementation manual lays out nine overarching guidelines for disability inclusion, then devotes a chapter to each guideline to explore why it is important, how to accomplish it, examples from the field, and related resources. It offers a useful framework that can be adapted for use by planners of Out-of-School Time (OST) program initiatives and policies in the areas of physical activity, health, and nutrition.
Through a survey, this research study explored what Out-of-School Time (OST) program staff need in order to feel better prepared to support the inclusion of school-aged children with special needs in their programs. Results indicated that professional development on inclusion is key to success. These findings can inform policy and programmatic decisions on professional development.
This concise, user-friendly tipsheet includes specific ideas for parents around promoting reading and math learning, creating opportunities for learning and staying active, and talking with their child, their child's teacher, and their summertime child care provider to set up for success. Summertime child care providers can share this tipsheet with families to further support summer learning and enrichment experiences for the children they serve.
NCASE has also published a companion tipsheet, Summer Learning and Enrichment: Tips for School-Age Care Providers, to share ideas with summertime child care providers for creating a plan for the summer months, building a relationship with families, engaging children in activities to help prevent the summer slide, and keeping children healthy and active during the summer months.
The National Center on Afterschool and Summer Enrichment (NCASE) has created a tipsheet, Summer Learning and Learning Enrichment: Tips for School-Age Care Providers, to share ideas with child care providers of things to think about before, during, and at the end of summer. Specific suggestions involve creating a plan for the summer months, building a relationship with families, engaging children in activities to help prevent the summer slide, and keeping children healthy and active during the summer months. Summertime child care providers can help children have a fun, healthy, and enriching summer!
A companion tipsheet is also available from NCASE: Summer Learning Fun! Tips for Parents/Caregivers. This tipsheet provides concrete ideas for parents and caregivers around how to engage their children in fun, meaningful learning activities throughout the summer. Summertime child care providers can share this tipsheet with families to further support summer learning and enrichment experiences for the children they serve.
This toolkit features more than 50 adaptable tools, sample documents, tip sheets, and guidance on how to use them drawn from five urban districts and their partners, who formed the National Summer Learning Project. It is organized into five planning areas: (1) staffing, (2) site climate, (3) student recruitment, (4) planning, and (5) academics and enrichment. The toolkit is aligned with recommendations from the RAND Corporation's Getting to Work on Summer Learning: Recommended Practices for Success, 2nd Edition.
Three companion webinars to this toolkit can be found here: 3 webinars to help put the finishing touches on your summer learning program.
The National Center on Afterschool and Summer Enrichment (NCASE) is pleased to share a practice brief on Aligning Out-of-School Time Services for Children Experiencing Homelessness. This brief is the fifth in a periodic series published by NCASE to build awareness of promising practices in the field of school-age child care.
The definitions of homeless children and youth used by the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) and the Department of Education have become aligned, providing better opportunities for collaboration between Lead Agencies and state departments of education and child care providers. This is especially true for public schools and providers serving school-age children.
The examples discussed in the brief show that out-of-school time programs are well positioned to provide supportive environments for youth experiencing homelessness as well as their families. State and local agencies, school districts, and programs need to consider the expanded definition of homelessness and employ innovative ways to identify these families. Following this definition increases the likelihood that families with school-age children will benefit from the stable, caring services of OST programs.
This website was designed by Maryland State Department of Education to support early childhood providers in promoting family engagement. It includes resources, news, events, an early childhood engagement theoretical framework, and a 96-page toolkit (link to: https://marylandfamiliesengage.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/maryland-family-engagement-framework-toolkit.pdf) that provides concrete strategies for putting the theory into practice. The section on effective practices describes suggested activities and indicates the target ages, materials needed, costs, and considerations. The kit also includes a self-assessment and action plan template. Although geared to early childhood providers, the website and toolkit can be easily adapted to SAC and could serve as a SAC model for other states.
This guidebook provides a definition of access and how to measure access across different types of settings. It also describes indicators of access, how to measure the indicators, and what data sources exist. While it is primarily designed for birth to age 5, the model can be adapted for use in studying access for school-age care.