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This case study highlights the historical context behind the Pay Equity Fund, the vision and goals of the fund, early implementation successes and challenges, and future goals based on interviews with key informants, parents and guardians, center directors, and home-based providers. The goal of the Pay Equity Fund is to improve staff recruitment, retention, and morale and mental health, as well as program quality improvement and child outcomes. These findings can inform jurisdictions across the country as they design and implement compensation improvements for the child care workforce.
This course from Better Kid Care focuses on three tiers of strategies educators and programs can use to create a culture of caring that prioritizes relationships and supports for mental health and well-being. These are important strategies, given that research has found that educators' emotional availability and sensitivity to children's needs decrease in times of stress. To promote well-being, the module suggests developing a culture of caring, deepening relationships, and promoting work-life balance and self-care. To prevent burnout, suggestions include offering job accommodations, reflective supervision, and referrals to community resources. There are helpful worksheets such as burnout assessment and team-building activities. Available in Spanish. This resource supports resiliency. This resource supports equity.
This guide, by the Oregon Department of Education, offers an inspiring vision for summer learning in the post-pandemic world, prioritizing those most in need. It includes a focus on mental health and well-being and providing learning opportunities that can ignite and renew engagement, foster learning, and nourish in-person connections. It also includes information on state and federal funding streams.
This toolkit was designed as a learning resource to enhance opportunities to support mental and social-emotional health for children and adolescents in afterschool programs. It includes: (1) an overview of emotions and behaviors seen in youth; (2) definitions and descriptions of common mental disorders; (3) signs and symptoms of crisis in youth; and (4) resources for managing challenging behaviors and accessing supports.
This guide provides engaging activities and challenges to be used for youth-serving summer programs, whether running virtually or in-person, or to send digitally to families. It is organized to support four different age groups (5-9), (10-12), (13-15), (16-18). The first unit was released May 27, 2020 and subsequent units will be released in two-week increments. Unit 1 is Why I Am which is arts focused; Unit 2 is Healthy Life for physical and mental health activities; Unit 3 is Passion and Purpose on service learning; Unit 4 is Invention and Imagination with a focus on STEM and arts; and Unit 5 is Exploring My World on cultures. Also included is a guide on implementation and on safety considerations for virtual programming. This resource supports the COVID-19 response.
This website offers resources on a range topics related to healthy youth development, with the goal of helping users create, maintain, and strengthen effective youth programs. Topics are divided into 28 categories such as after school programs, employment, bullying prevention, expectant and parenting young families, LGBT, mental health, helping youth cope after a school shooting, substance abuse prevention, and transition and aging out. This website is useful for accessing current information on youth-related news, facts, tools, and resources.