Effective afterschool and expanded learning programs allow youth to have a choice, in both determining what types of activities are offered and selecting what to participate in from a menu of options. When youth can help determine the program content and select what activities they want to participate in, they are more likely to be enthusiastic and retain the knowledge, skills, and information provided to them.

In addition, offering multiple options will expose youth to new activities and provide opportunities for development. It is important to know what types of choices make sense for young people's developmental stage. For example, it is helpful to have guided choices for younger participants. You might offer those in Grades K-3 the opportunity to choose from one of three art activities using the same materials. In contrast, older youth might be allowed to choose not only activities within a program but also the actual content for programming and even program partners. It is helpful if program staff members help inform choices by teaching decision-making strategies (e.g., collecting information, weighing options, and prioritizing). For choice to be successful, choices need to be realistic and based on available resources, age and stage appropriate, and authentic. Therefore, only offer choices you are prepared to follow through with and that you have the resources (or can work with youth to get the resources) to carry out.

Allowing youth to make decisions about how an activity will proceed gives opportunities for youth ownership of the activity, but the decisions made by youth must be real decisions. Real decisions are those that affect youth experience and the outcome of the activity. The results of these decisions should be visible to youth and linked to the learning goals of the activity.

Ensure that the decisions you offer through activities are age appropriate. Younger youth may be able to feel some ownership of an activity by making choices from a limited set of options (e.g., choosing supplies for a project from a set of choices). Older youth, however, should make decisions that are broader in both scope and depth. For example, if your program is running a school store, you may give youth the options of whether to have a sale, when to hold it, how much to cut prices, and how to advertise. Through making these decisions, youth will have a stake in the outcome of the activity. They will see the consequences of their decisions in relation to the change in the profit margin, sales numbers, and number of customers.

Although authentic decision making allows youth to collectively take ownership of an activity, providing opportunities for youth leadership gives an individual young person (or a group) responsibility for a particular piece of that activity. You can create opportunities for youth leadership in many ways. One way is to offer opportunities for youth to volunteer for specific roles that are built into the activity itself, such as leading warm-up exercises in a sports activity. Another is to be receptive to emerging youth leadership about the course an activity may take and allowing changes based on that leadership. Still another is to provide opportunities for youth leadership within the program overall - perhaps through a youth governance council or youth membership on your board of directors. Creating these opportunities for leadership encourages youth to take pride in their work and helps them develop important skills for the future. It is important, however, that these opportunities for leadership do not fall into the trap of tokenism (i.e., when youth are given token leadership roles that don't really mean anything or have any real impact on the program); tokenism can be more harmful than not involving them at all. It is easy, for example, to put a program participant on your board of directors but then not give them a vote or hold your meetings during the day when they are in school. Doing this can actually disempower youth and leave them feeling discouraged. Whatever you do to promote leadership, be sure it is genuine.

Reflection refers to the careful thought or consideration of an idea or event, with the intent of making changes or focusing on improvement. This practice is important and effective at all levels - with youth to help them get the most out of their program experience and with staff members as you consider the effectiveness of your program.

Reflection with youth participants is a particularly important - and often forgotten - component of successful program delivery. Youth will learn more from an activity if they have time to process what they did and why. Youth self-reflection has many benefits. Self-reflection teaches youth a higher level of thinking and problem solving. Youth gain lifelong learning skills, including how to learn from their experience. Furthermore, youth become more aware of changes in themselves and are more in tune with and thus accountable for their behavior.

Although it is easy to omit reflection exercises when time is tight, it is important to remind staff members to keep at least a few minutes during each session to process the activity. We suggest integrating youth reflection into your program by setting up a time for reflection at the end of each activity or at the end of the program. Remember to use a variety of ways to facilitate youth reflection, including group discussion, pair shares, journal writing, or an arts project. A simple but effective activity for reflecting on the overall feel of the program is to have youth indicate how they feel about their engagement with the program with their thumb: thumbs up for good, thumbs sideways for so-so, or thumbs down if it wasn't so great. Follow up the thumbs activity with a group conversation asking young people to volunteer to share why they gave a thumbs up, or sideways, or down or have everyone write in their journals the reason for their thumb election. The following are some reflections questions for youth: What did you learn today? What did you like about this activity? What did you contribute (or give) to the activity? How can we improve the activity? What should we do next to build on what we did today? What else is going on that we should pay attention to?

Just as youth should reflect to better learn from their experiences, effective program leaders should reflect on their practices. Reviewing what worked and didn't work and why in the activities can help program staff members improve activities and interactions with other staff members, families, and youth. As a program leader, you can foster an environment that promotes reflection as a daily practice. To help keep these issues in mind, Hellison and Templin (1991) suggested two important questions that staff members can ask themselves at the end of each day: (1) What is worth doing in the program? (2) Is what I am doing working?

The first question is philosophical and requires reflection regarding your beliefs and values related to afterschool and expanded learning programming. It can lead to additional, more specific questions. For example: Is academic enrichment more important than recreation? Does service learning fit into our program?

The second question focuses on your choice of programming, your relational strategies, and how you address problems that occur. It also leads to additional, more specific questions. For example: Do our activities promote academic enrichment? How can we design an activity to meet the needs of all youth? How could I have better handled a disruptive situation? Additional reflection questions for program staff include the following: (1) How did I do today? What can I do to improve tomorrow? (2) Did my activity plan work? If not, Should I make adjustments? Did my Plan B work? (3) Was there a good balance of planned time and time for youth to transition, wind down, and reflect? Were youth engaged throughout the course of the planned activities? (4) Did I offer youth authentic opportunities to make choices and decisions and lead? (5) If something unexpected arose, was I prepared enough to be flexible and responsive? (6) If today was a challenge, can I figure out why and make adjustments?

Most importantly, staff members may ask themselves: What did I learn today? How can I apply that to tomorrow? The better at reflection staff members become, the better they can teach youth to reflect on their daily actions, thoughts, and behaviors. Let staff members reflect on the types of qualities they have as afterschool and expanded learning practitioners.

As you think about the kind of program opportunities you want to offer, you will likely need to think about the skills you want to build and how you will identify activities and implementation approaches that foster those skills. Research has identified four common elements in afterschool and expanded learning programs that are most effective in developing skills (Durlak et al., 2011). These SAFE elements and characteristics are as follows: “S” stands for activities that are sequenced. “A” stands for learning that is active. “F” stands for activities that are focused on developing personal and social skills. “E” stands for activities that explicitly target specific skills and outcomes.

Read the following sections and use Tool 70: Structuring Activities for Skill-Building as you ensure your activities are SAFE.

Sequenced
Sequencing (also known as scaffolding or building) occurs when staff members structure activities to meet youth at their level—where youth are in terms of their development, skill level, readiness, and interest—and help build their knowledge and skills in sequential order. For youth to develop new skills, activities should fall into what the developmental psychologist Lev Vygotsky (1978) referred to as their “zone of proximal development,” the difference between what youth can do independently and without help versus what they can do with the support of an adult or more advanced peer (Vygotsky, 1987). As youth build new skills, it is important for staff members to offer guidance when needed, ask questions to further their thinking, and provide specific feedback on how they are doing. Sequencing refers to meeting youth at their current level of development and learning and intentionally building from there to the next set of skills or level of learning. For example, in a cooking class, the program may start out with youth watching the instructor cook something. Next, youth might be given a little more freedom but still be following very clear and explicit recipes. As youth become more comfortable with following a recipe and measuring ingredients, the instructor might allow them to experiment more; by the end of the course, youth may be able to develop their own recipes based on what they have learned about appropriate measures and ingredients.

Active
The idea behind active learning is based on research that shows that youth (and adults, for that matter) learn best by doing. Often referred to as experiential or hands on, active learning involves young people interacting with the materials and activity, trying things out, and receiving feedback from adults to help them process what they have learned. This occurs in cycles of testing, receiving feedback, and applying that feedback until the young person masters the content. Active learning is most often associated with science programs (e.g., conducting an experiment) but can be applied to any content area. For example, young people can learn about geometry by taking a sailing class, where they learn about sail size and shape and the implications of wind direction. Although active learning involves a level of independence for the learner, it is not intended to be “pure discovery” with minimal adult interaction. The most effective active learning experiences are ones in which staff members support youth in making connections and discovering new ideas.

Focused and Explicit
Programming that is focused and explicit targets specific skills and outcomes, and focuses on building those skills through explicit program activities. In other words, if you want your program to improve a young person’s problem-solving skills, then the lessons and activities within the program should explicitly teach problem solving. To continue the example, there may be many ways to focus on problem solving. In an academic program, you may be working on solving mathematical problems; in a service-learning program, young people may be tasked with identifying a solution to the problem of litter in their neighborhood. The point here is that your activities should match your intended outcomes.