Weekly Media Roundup: September 26, 2018

Youth Find Release in After School Program, WBNS-10TV (Ohio)

In central Ohio, Directions for Youth and Families aims to address childhood trauma by building a safe community for youth. Its free afterschool program offers homework help as well as physical activities including basketball and dance, which are meant to promote physical wellbeing and teach stress-management strategies. Directions’ CEO was recently invited to the White House to discuss the organization’s experiences as one of 12 agencies in the nation to pilot the Adverse Childhood Experiences tool for assessing the impact of trauma. “After school, it is something better to do,” student Donovan Coinchscales told WBNS-10TV. “I love the place and I like to come here and dance.”

Healthy Dent County Continues School Health Goals with New After-School Program in Salem, Salem News Online (Missouri)

A new afterschool program combines fun and exercise to promote health for elementary-school children in Salem, Missouri. Funded by the Missouri Foundation for Health, Tiger Nation engages around 50 students in entertaining, full-body group exercises after school. In addition to fostering healthy habits, Healthy Dent County created the program in response to a lack of afterschool options in Salem, which is a rural community. “I’m just really excited about this program and to see these kids develop from what they started out as,” Healthy Dent County District Wellness Coordinator Melissa DuBois told Salem News Online.

In an ‘Out-of-School-Time Desert,’ Organizers Connect Kids to Opportunities, WHYY (Pennsylvania)

Because there are so few affordable, high-quality afterschool programs in the area, community leaders have called Southwest Philadelphia an “out-of-school time desert.” To combat this problem, the Afterschool Activities Partnership (ASAP) recently collaborated with a local news website to host an Afterschool Activities Fair where families could connect with free and low-cost afterschool programs in their neighborhood. ASAP operates more than 351 programs throughout the city and reached more than 5,000 kids with programming in the 2016-2017 school year. “I think [afterschool programs] expose [children] to new things, and I hope they find out they’re passionate about something,” parent Lisa Hall told WHYY.

Grant Brings New Reading Program to Elementary Schools, The Cowley Courier-Traveler (Kansas)

In Winfield, Kansas, three elementary schools are creating afterschool and summer learning programs designed to increase students’ academic achievement. The Kansas Reading Roadmap (KRR) partners with schools to create afterschool and summer literacy programming that complements in-school instruction to ensure students achieve reading proficiency by the third grade. Parent engagement is a key aspect of the program; in the LIFE series, families engage in literacy activities meant to strengthen the parent-child bond. “The district is excited to implement KRR in the three elementary schools,” Winfield Superintendent Nathan Reed told the Cowley Courier-Traveler. “The extension of learning into after-school, summer school, and parent engagement is going to benefit the students immensely.”