North Shore Directors Roundtable Reflections

Hosted by the YMCA of Peabody, the NDR gathered together providers from the North Shore region of Massachusetts. The presentation on Promoting Positive Behavior was the second in BOSTnet's series of free professional development for this community. Behavior is a very requested topic by programs as they seek to train a staff of varied backgrounds to work with children with varied needs. Promoting Promoting Positive Behavior is an approach with supports (tools and some on-site interventions) that seek to establish a culture of prevention and recognition that many challenging behaviors stem from staff needing to improve their group management and to establish strong relationships with the children or youth, some behaviors are passing or have no "quick fix" solutions, and a few children have special needs above what an average program can provide. The presentation was perhaps too much of an overview at times since the average experience level in the room was 13 years, however 50% of attendees greatly enjoyed the round table with 80% listing the presentation as beneficial. It was surprising that 99% of attendees supervised staff but not so surprising given OST that those same people also were administrators (95%), provided some level of direct service (59%), as well as raised funds (40%), or "did everything as program director." Also not surprising was that this seasoned staff had attended "tons," or "a lot," and even "a million!" trainings on OST subjects. While many say this is a "new field," this level of experience needs to be better used so that these leaders can not only be recognized for what they already know, but can pass these skills on to workers as well as future directors.

Some interesting moments of the event were the comments time and again saying that OST needed to distinguish itself from school and to be recognized for the value it brings as youth development and that the flexibility of programs and and the element of fun and engaging activities that have, as one practitioner said, "children running into the building." "When do you see children running into school?" Many directors said that they did not feel recognized by schools and that they did not see the benefit to "become more like schools... or being put into a partnership where you are bossed around." This is interesting to hear since there is a push for increased partnerships between programs as well as more emphasis on school partnerships and programs structuring themselves as extensions of the school day. "They're robbing them of their childhood" one director said in conversation. These are very strong words and indeed, the issue at stake is whether OST remains a distinct field that continues to grow, or is absorbed into the school system.

Out-of-School Time programs generally solve behavioral issues through a more relations-based approach, that certain behaviors are accepted (skipping, laughing, having fun with friends), and some behaviors are encouraged (asking questions, having a say in choosing an activity, voicing opinions). This is in contrast to an increasing use of "zero tolerance" at younger ages and a "school to prison pipeline" within many school districts, and certainly more so in low-income districts. The behavioral approach that encourages discussion and prevention may not work in the confines of school. However, this does not mean that this approach is not valid for the kind of environment most directors want their programs to be for young people.

For any partnership to thrive, it must be between equals.