Make your afterschool program the 'heart of health'

We all know that after school and during the summer are a perfect time to get kids active and teach them healthy habits for life.  Afterschool and summer learning programs offer a perfect complement to the school day and allow for creative partnerships between schools and community-based organizations to help improve the health of our communities. 

Kaiser Permanente is offering a new tool, Thriving Schools, to help communities get active—it’s a great instrument that afterschool programs can adopt to help strengthen their partnership with schools, or to complement the physical activity programming they’re already doing.  Thriving Schools is a comprehensive effort focused on creating a culture of health for K-12 students, staff and educators both during the school day and after. By promoting workforce health and student-focused interventions—such as improving snacks and meals and increasing opportunities for physical activity—Kaiser Permanente and its partners are working to fulfill the Institute of Medicine’s call for schools and afterschool programs to be “the heart of health.”  Out-of-school-time providers will find it easy to adapt and use these tools in their own programs.

Kaiser Permanente has plenty of free ready-to-use tools and resources available on their website.  One of our favorites is the Fire Up Your Feetinitiative, a partnership with Safe Routes to School National Partnership and the National PTA.  Fire Up Your Feet encourages educators, students and their families to walk or bike to and from school—or on their way to a before- or afterschool program!  Afterschool programs can use the initiative as a fundraiser—think about incorporating Fire Up Your Feet into your Lights On Afterschool celebration in October!

In addition to programming ideas like Fire Up Your Feet, Thriving Schools also offers concrete, simple ideas for small changes you can make in your program to promote healthy eating, encourage physical activity and to create a healthy learning environment.  For example:

• To minimize the number of birthday celebrations with unhealthy treats, consider celebrating all students birthdays for that month on one day
• Develop and post walking maps of the neighborhood around your program
• Identify a wellness champion at each site who can share information and identify opportunities to promote healthy behaviors and can bring site-specific needs back to the organization