The National Center for Quality Afterschool

Helping local practitioners and state education agencies develop high-quality and balanced programs

About the Center

Training Services

Staff Professional Development Sessions: Programming

Ages and Stages: Understanding Students' Growth and Development

Knowledge about how students grow and develop is critical for designing and implementing high-quality afterschool programs attractive to students. This session addresses the milestones of physical, cognitive, and social development and explains how this understanding can better prepare afterschool staff to meet students' needs and design programs that attract and keep them involved.

What's Up with Afterschool Programming?

Afterschool programs are often judged by the activities they offer. Programming ranges from academic activities related to the school day to recreational and youth development activities just for the fun of it. This session is designed to help participants learn how to involve students, parents, and teachers in planning and implementing afterschool programs that will motivate students to participate in afterschool and keep them coming week after week.

Service Learning in Afterschool

This session addresses how to effectively use service learning to help students channel energy into meaningful, experience-based learning. Examples of best practices are shared, as are new ways to access funding to help support the use of volunteers in afterschool programs.

Ready to Learn?

Contact us to discuss your professional development needs and how the Center can assist you.

Online Training for Afterschool Staff
The Afterschool Training Toolkit is available online free of charge.

The following resources can be used with the online Afterschool Training Toolkit to give you the resources you need to build fun, innovative, and academically enriching afterschool activities.