Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/setting-the-stage-for-childrens-success/5016840/
Program quality is about setting the stage for children’s learning. A critical element of program quality is the environment, both the physical and emotional aspects. The environment strongly affects staff, children’s, and parents’ interactions with each other, and adults’ ability to create an atmosphere where children’s growth and development is supported.The role of school-age care programs has been clarified over the last 15 years. Programs have been developed to provide children a complete out-of-school experience with recreational, social, and skill-building opportunities, and academic support. School-age programs are vital partners to families; the programs are often linked to a school’s performance, and are a community’s effort to ensure children’s safety.
Two other shifts have occurred in this period. First, public awareness of the critical need for children and youth to be engaged in meaningful activities in their out of school time has lead to a proliferation of programs and increased public and private funding. Second, there has been an effort to define program quality in school-age programs and to push programs toward continued program improvements, one example being the number of programs achieving accreditation through the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) or National AfterSchool Association ...