This section includes voices from the OST field including guest blogs, vlogs (video blogs), photo essays, and narratives by practitioners in professional development and training programs reflecting on their personal successes and challenges in these programs.
We accept submissions from practitioners in the OST field. For more information about submitting your work, contact our executive editor Molly Bloom.
Explore & Download These Resources
Art & Practice of Building a Learning Community in Afterschool Programs
This photoessay describes an innovative training for afterschool directors that uses the frameworks of Professional Learning Communities and the Five Disciplines developed by Peter Sange, including Mental Models, Working Together and Systems Thinking.
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A Holistic Approach to OST Staff Development
We often provide staff development in order to check off the “boxes” in regulations rather than think about staff’s dreams, visions, and passions. This innovative approach to OST staff development provides a holistic framework for looking at a longer term trajectory of youth program staff.
Appreciative Inquiry Goes to Afterschool
Appreciative Inquiry (AI) is an asset-based approach to organizations that is a “search for the best in people, their organizations, and the relevant world around them.” This photoessay describes the implementation of Appreciative Inquiry with site directors of an afterschool program.
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