Last week, the Collaborative for Advancing Healthy Experiences in OST (CAHE-OST) hosted a webinar, Healthy OST Champions: Uplifting Strategies That Make a Difference. The webinar spotlighted three OST professionals from our Healthy OST Champions series: Carla Chinavare, Enrique Garcia, and Krista Caldwell. Click through to view the webinar recording!

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The Collaborative for Advancing Healthy Experiences in OST (CAHE-OST), a partnership between the National AfterSchool Association and the Education Development Center, is spotlighting success stories from the field to uplift the impactful work that out-of-school time professionals are leading across the nation to support the health and wellness for young people and their staff.

Enrique Garcia is the Healthy Kids Director at United Way of El Paso County , Texas. The organization is a backbone for the Paso del Norte Health Foundation, which supports OST programming and health promotion. This foundation is an intermediary that supports over 80 different local organizations through capacity building, training, and connecting OST staff to resources.

Enrique also supports the OST community in his region through the Borderland Out-of-School Time (BOOST) Network in El Paso, which includes roughly 80 OST providers and their partners. This regional tri-state and bi-national network supports OST in U.S. counties in New Mexico and Texas and Juárez municipality in Mexico. About this unique network: “We support all organizations that work in the OST space in our region, building capacity, and supporting the promotion of their efforts and events. We try to navigate through different resources and any tools we can find to support them in any capacity to elevate the [great] work they are already doing, and continue to make improvements.”

BOOST offers all their support in English and Spanish, even network meetings. “We use a live interpretation so that the language variation doesn't exist,” Enrique says. “Anybody that only speaks English can communicate with anybody that only speaks Spanish.” Enrique’s organization translated the NAA Healthy Eating and Physical Activity (HEPA) Standards for OST into Spanish. Now, they regularly uses the HEPA standards as a tool to help organizations in the network. When Enrique began working with OST providers and partners, they initially felt the HEPA Standards would be an added responsibility and burden. Still, after educating staff, they realized some of the practices were simple and attainable. “We did a couple of sessions,” he says, “sharing some ideas of easy ways for them to target a best practice. And some of them are pretty low-hanging fruit.” Ultimately, OST staff realized that the kids in the program were more engaged and that their program quality improved.

The broad applicability of the standards was critical to Enrique’s work. However, some of the OST programs and partners in this region have limited infrastructure and capacity, but they still saw success with the HEPA Standards. “A lot of them don't have the infrastructure to say, ‘We're going to have a fridge and cold water available for all programming,’ because they were working on a public park or [in a place] where there was not a lot of access to essential infrastructure that we take for granted,” he shares. “But in practice, they were able to address some of the standards, regardless of the disparities in infrastructure.” Despite not having refrigeration or running water across all sites, OST providers could still address healthy eating and physical activity in their programming.

As someone who works in an intermediary role, Enrique believes that attending professional development sessions like CAHE-OST webinars and sessions at the NAA Convention are helpful to his work with OST providers. “We try to support what we can best… promoting and sharing different resources applicable to a region. That's why I joined many of those webinars and sessions: to find different and new resources and approaches that we can integrate.” Enrique’s key takeaway is encouraging others in OST to connect with peers at the NAA Convention. “Everybody knows what you're talking about, and I think these sessions reassure some of the work we are trying to push. It's also a great opportunity to meet counterparts with the same passion for your work, connect you to others, and elevate the work here.”

Enrique's Lessons Learned for the Field:
1.  Despite disparities in resources, the HEPA Standards are still achievable and helpful for OST providers
2.  Attend professional development opportunities in the OST to learn about resources, tools, and new approaches that OST professionals use in their community.
3.  If available in your region, reach out and engage with your OST intermediary organization for support, and to enhance and participate in collective efforts. 

Learn more about Enrique’s organization: www.theboostnetwork.org.

Each story in this series represents unique cases of how OST professionals enact policy, program, and practice changes in different contexts across the country. We hope you learn new ideas for your work and are inspired as much as we are! If you want your story featured in this series, submit your idea here  or contact the Collaborative at healthyOST@edc.org.

The Collaborative for Advancing Healthy Experiences in OST (CAHE-OST), a partnership between the National AfterSchool Association and the Education Development Center, is spotlighting success stories from the field to uplift the impactful work that out-of-school time professionals are leading across the nation to support the health and wellness for young people and their staff. Click here to learn more about our work and resources for the field .

The Collaborative for Advancing Healthy Experiences in OST (CAHE-OST), a partnership between the National AfterSchool Association and the Education Development Center, is spotlighting success stories from the field to uplift the impactful work that out-of-school time professionals are leading across the nation to support the health and wellness for young people and their staff.

Carla Chinavare is the executive director of Whole Family Integration at the Wayne Metro Community Action Agency in Detroit. She has been with her organization for 24 years and in the OST field for almost 20 years. Carla oversees twelve early childhood and twenty-seven  K-12 programs, most of which receive funding from the Office of Head Start and 21st Century Community Learning Centers (21st CCLC). She also manages additional programs outside the 21st CCLC umbrella, including summer programs that provide food and enrichment for vulnerable communities and shelter-based programs serving youth facing homelessness.

Wayne Metro is designated as a Community Action Agency, and as the organization’s mission underscores, “in our pursuit to eliminate poverty, Wayne Metro empowers people and communities to be strong, healthy and thriving.” Wayne Metro supports families with programs and resources for utility assistance, financial coaching, rent or mortgage assistance, property and tax assistance, and other wraparound support services. “Not only are we serving students, keeping them safe, keeping them engaged, supporting their academics — it's a whole family approach that we take here,” Carla explains. This approach means that Carla and her colleagues can check in with parents and families to see if they could benefit from job coaching, bill payment assistance, and food support. “It's very intentional and strategic,” Carla shares. “That’s where a lot of our family engagement work is, [in] our wraparound supports by design. That’s a Community Action Agency.”

Carla also emphasizes the importance of family engagement in OST beyond resource provision. “There's family engagement in this regard, as I'm describing connecting families to resources,” she shares. “But then there's also the critical piece of family involvement, where they're decision-making partners in your afterschool program. We recognize that without the input and buy-in of the families, our programs will only go so far.”

Interested in Community Action Agencies in your area?

Click here to learn more about the National Community Action Partnership, a Community Action Agencies network, and find an agency near you. 

Carla and her agency have recently focused on improving food access and nutrition in their programming, including expanding a Snap-Ed initiative to additional program sites. They are currently in the implementation phase, working with schools and communities to learn where the gaps are in nutrition and education and designing a program based on the community needs

In addition to assessing community needs, Carla and her staff are aware that the community in which they live and work comprises varying populations with distinct requirements. In serving Arab, Bengali, Hispanic, and other families, their approach to food and nutrition must always be culturally relevant and meaningful. For example, they learned early on the importance of providing some of their families with halal food. Furthermore, they worked with their food partner to design food options using spices and ingredients familiar to families.

After participating in training sessions facilitated by CAHE-OST, Carla was inspired to develop a school health and wellness policy and is now planning to revamp their programming handbook to include health and wellness policies and implement practices with their team. “We're working with our team… so everybody's bought in and understands it and then lives and breathes it throughout our program.” Moreover, Carla explained that her agency has made a deliberate effort to partner with mental health providers for their OST programs, ensuring mental health is integrated throughout their programs and reflected in their policy.

What is a Healthy OST Wellness Policy?

What is a Healthy OST Wellness Policy? A wellness policy is a written document comprising several policies and language that outline an agency’s dedication to children’s health and wellness. Some programs use policies to define the types of foods that can or can’t be consumed on-premises. In contrast, others may set the requirement for a minimum number of physical activity minutes during program hours. Many policies also focus on staff wellness to emphasize healthy role modeling. Click here to learn more and see examples.

When asked about Carla’s goals for leading OST work, she shares a vision she calls a “whole family integration model of work” and explained it from the perspective of families: “You're coming in as a 21^st Century parent, but you're not only a 21st Century parent — you're a 21^st Century parent who's also getting GED prep, also taking part in our food distribution, also getting a utility bill paid, and we're that one-stop shop.” In light of these layered services, Carla works so everyone on her team understands all potential services. To effectively do this, Carla’s agency created a specific position, youth and family engagement specialists who work with young people, facilitate the program and enrichment, and are well-versed in wraparound support.

To support staff and families, Carla’s team helped design a brief family assessment form so families could list various needs, such as housing stability, employment assistance, and nutrition. Family engagement specialists followed up with families to link them to support and also shared their Whole Family Toolkit, which helps families set goals.

As she explains, the key to Carla’s work is “intentional integration to help students and to help families, and we use our afterschool platform to help do that work.” For Carla and her agency, OST is a platform to connect with young people and their families around not only healthy eating and physical activity but also a multitude of social determinants of health — conditions like housing, employment, and other socioeconomic resources that impact a family’s ability to be happy and healthy.

Carla believes there is beauty in their collaborations and partnerships, offering clear advice to other programs: “If you’re not putting yourself out there to a school partner, a food-based partner, or your local DHS office, then start building that community. That’s going to grow and help the smaller organizations, too. You’ll have a better, big-picture perspective on the landscape of the community you work with.”

Finally, Carla reminds others in the field, “Never underestimate your parents. They need to be at the table 100% and want to be at it. Give them that invitation, that safe space, that voice. It's so important, and they'll be your biggest advocates.”

Carla’s Lessons Learned from the Field:

1. Seek out your local Community Action Agency or partners who can provide similar support for social determinants of health.
2. Expand family engagement approaches to include parents as decision-making partners in your program.
3. Lean on community partnerships to help you adapt a whole family approach in OST.

Learn more about Carla’s organization, Wayne Metro, at waynemetro.org.

Each story in this series represents unique cases of how OST professionals enact policy, program, and practice changes in different contexts across the country. We hope you learn new ideas for your work and are inspired as much as we are! If you want your story featured in this series, submit your idea here or contact the Collaborative at healthyOST@edc.org.

CAHE-OST is working to improve the health and well-being of youth and staff in OST programs. Click here to learn more about our work and resources for the field .

The Collaborative for Advancing Health Equity in OST (CAHE-OST), a partnership between the National AfterSchool Association and the Education Development Center, is spotlighting success stories from the field to uplift the impactful work that out-of-school time professionals are leading across the nation to support the health and wellness for young people and their staff.

Krista Caldwell is an NAA member and school-age specialist working at Early Childhood Connections in South Dakota . She works with childcare providers, including teachers and parents, and coaches educators on how to work with youth. Krista focuses her work around a free, web-based program called Sanford Fit, a children’s health initiative from Sanford Health designed to support healthy eating, physical activity, and social and emotional well-being for children, programs, and their parents.

Krista's Journey to OST:

With over 15 years of experience in childcare and youth development, Krista currently serves as the School Age Specialist at Early Childhood Connections in Rapid City, SD, where she provides coaching and technical assistance to before- and after-school professionals. Growing up in the Black Hills of South Dakota, Krista’s passion for mentoring began as a volunteer Junior Counselor at the YMCA and grew through roles such as summer camp counselor, before and after school site coordinator, team building specialist, and character development coordinator, supported by her studies in Wellness Management at Black Hills State University. Krista’s career has focused on fostering social-emotional growth, team building, and behavioral understanding, enhanced by her experience as a former Registered Behavior Technician.

When Krista started working with Early Childhood Connections, the Fit program primarily focused on preschool and toddler-aged children. Moreover, she noticed that instructors at the afterschool programs she worked with needed access to curriculum options for healthy food and physical activity for school-age kids. After attending the Collaborative for Advancing Health Equity in Out-of-School Time (CAHE-OST) Virtual Institute, Krista learned about the NAA Healthy Eating and Physical Activity (HEPA) Standards for OST . She describes her realization: “Sanford Fit, the HEPA Standards… why not align the two?” This alignment aimed to increase familiarity with and use of the  HEPA Standards in South Dakota using the tools she was already working with.

Krista reviewed the Sanford Fit pillars and aligned them with the HEPA Standards. She then created activities based on each of these pieces, developed resources to share with her educators, and recommended easy ways to create lesson plans that consider both the HEPA Standards and Sanford Fit. She also began offering in-person and online training for Sanford Fit, eventually advocating for partners in her state to focus more on OST and show how these efforts support the goals of healthy schools.

Currently, Krista focuses on designing and creating Sanford Fit lesson plans and training educators across her state to better integrate healthy eating and physical activity into their work with youth. Krista has received positive feedback on her training and, more generally, on the program activities and HEPA Standards.

She shared that the most significant part of her success in training has been encouraging educators to dig deeper and talk about why healthy eating and physical movement are essential: “Help [young people] understand how it's helping them. Help them understand why you're doing this.  Talk about the nutritional value of the food and discuss where it comes from. Tell them how the playground equipment is a way to build muscle and how their food and activity choices can affect their mood — and vice versa.”

Krista also emphasizes how important it is for educators to be involved in such activities alongside youth, not just for young people but also for the sake of other staff, to sustain a healthy team. “When you’re excited about what you’re promoting, and if you want to promote the standards with your staff, that will get them to understand the benefits and do it with the kids,” she explains, “As a leader, you need to promote it, too.” Staff involvement can improve markers of job quality by setting the tone for a holistic understanding of health drawn from the standards.

When we asked Krista to share a lesson she learned, she told a personal story of learning to overcome her fear and not be afraid to say yes. Early on in her career, she says, she waited for opportunities. She had drive and did her job the best she could, but she soon realized that her talent for teaching young people could translate to coaching educators to work with young people. “I left the position I’d been working in, took a leap of faith, and took a job that was a little bit harder,” she explains. “Don’t be afraid to go for it. Don't be afraid to say yes. Don't be afraid to look for opportunities, to look around, try to make those connections, try to reach out, [and] to ask the dumb questions.”

Reflecting on her career and work, Krista shared a final lesson for other OST professionals and educators. “Do not give up on these kids,” she emphasizes. They deserve us to be persistent and passionate, or nothing will change. So we can't give up on the kids, [because] they're looking for us. You know what to do. You can do it.”

Krista's Lessons Learned for the Field:

1. Help educators understand the “why” behind your healthy eating and physical activity goals and include them in program activities with young people
2. Set the tone of working on a healthy team by modeling healthy changes
3. Say yes to opportunities that come your way.

Learn more about Krista’s organization: Early Childhood Connections in South Dakota .

Each story in this series represents unique cases of how OST professionals enact policy, program, and practice changes in different contexts across the country. We hope you learn new ideas for your work and are inspired as much as we are! If you want your story featured in this series, submit your idea here or contact the Collaborative at healthequityOST@edc.org.

CAHE-OST is working to improve the health and well-being of youth and staff in OST programs, with a focus on populations most impacted by health disparities. Click here to learn more about our work and resources for the field .