Making It Happen

Staff development needs its own structured plan. Professional development comes in many forms, from multi-day conferences, to college courses, to short workshops, to books, websites, and tools, to in-house workshops and coaching.

Select the mix of professional development options that best fit your staff, programs and resources:

• Offering national, regional, state, and local conferences
• Presenting workshops by professional organizations and trainers
• Providing staff with tools and guides
• Conducting in-house training
• Deliberately engaging in reflective practice and continuous improvement
• Mentoring and coaching with in-house peers, across sites, or with afterschool organizations and trainers
• Using online resources
• Structuring staff meetings for professional development
  
  

On-site follow-through is essential. This can include:

• Staff meeting time devoted to follow-up
• Structured, focused observation and feedback
• Learning communities to assess, reflect, and revise strategies and techniques
• Peer coaching
• Examination of results as a group
• Use of continuous quality improvement tools
  • Staff-led follow-up training

"It is unlikely that programs will improve if they do not commit to an on-site staff development strategy that supports continuous improvement of the line-staff...[with an] ongoing focus on program practices at the point youth are served."

From the study “After-School Programs and Academics: Implications for Policy, Practice and Research” by Robert C. Granger. Funded by William T. Grant Foundation.

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