Every year, we survey youth to learn about their Club Experience. Find out what we heard in 2021 and what questions it might raise for your Club in this new ClubX Blog post.
NYOI 2021: The Club Experience During a Pandemic
Teens, Emotional Health, and What We Can Do
The latest research on teens and how they are coping with COVID-19 plus the new BGCA resource SMART Moves: Emotional Wellness Teen Expansion Pack that can help.
3 Tips for Designing Your Summer Arts Experiences
Want to plan rich, engaging arts experiences that will build skills while integrating youth voice? We’ve got you!
5 Ways to Use Canva Afterschool
The online design tool Canva is useful for a TON of projects in your afterschool program. Learn five of our favorites in this post!
What Are High-Yield Activities?
Have you started using Program Basics? We’ll be highlighting some of the best content from the suite here on the ClubX Blog. Visit BGCA.net/Programbasics to learn more about all the great resources! Boys & Girls Clubs do a LOT of things. If you made a list, it would go on and on and on and… Continue Reading →
Introverts in Afterschool: 5 Tips For Helping Quiet Youth Thrive
When I think of the average Boys & Girls Club, my mind goes straight to the Gamesroom. Often the heart of the Clubhouse. Loud, chaotic, busy, and fun! The next thing my mind goes to? How 8 year old Sarah would have HATEDDDDDDD the Gamesroom. The reason? 8 year old me was (and 30-something year… Continue Reading →
What Do We Measure? The Five Key Elements
So this blog is called The Club Experience Blog, but what does that mean? Where does that come from?
Spooky Scary Halloween Ideas
It’s September, which means IT’S TIME TO START PLANNING FOR HALLOWEEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Halloween is the best holiday to celebrate with young people. You can go all out and be silly and ridiculous and it is just accepted. I love it! To put together this post, I asked the foremost experts on fun- Boys & Girls Club… Continue Reading →
Club Story: Recognizing FUN In Virginia
One of the building blocks of the Five Key Elements is Recognition. At Clubs and Youth Centers, we use authentic gestures and encouragement to positively reinforce the good decisions, efforts, and successes of our youth. Recently, I learned about a great recognition idea from the Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Virginia, so I chatted… Continue Reading →
Recognition Through Shout-Out Displays – Lots of Decor Ideas
One of the Five Key Elements for Positive Youth Development is recognition. We know that when staff acknowledge young people’s innate strengths and talents, members feel validated and recognized. We can positively reinforce member’s efforts and persistence through authentic gestures and words of praise, and celebrate their progress and successes. We can recognize youth for a… Continue Reading →
Five Key Ingredients to an Impactful Music Program
Make a positive impact on youth through music programming with these five key components.
How Do We Measure the Club Experience? NYOI Primer
NYOI has officially started! National Youth Outcomes Initiative (NYOI) season is a very exciting time for us at Boys & Girls Clubs. As we kick off this year’s survey administration, we will have a series of posts in the Let’s Talk Data Series to give some background information as well as some ideas from Clubs… Continue Reading →
Visualizing Goal Tracking
I am not an artsy person. I know it’s hard to believe what with this amazing blog and all (wink wink), but I am just not. One of my least favorite things both in my classroom when I was teaching and in my program area at the Club was creating bulletin boards. Luckily, there are… Continue Reading →
Open-Ended Questions: What’s In Your Back Pocket?
This guest post is from Crystal Brown, Senior Director of Gender & Well-Being at BGCA. Have you ever asked a Club member a question and they provided you with an answer that gave you little to no information?
Autism Awareness Day: Tips for Navigating Three Common Afterschool Scenarios
April 2nd is World Autism Awareness Day, a time to promote education about the condition and inclusion of those affected. According to the CDC, 1 in 59 children are diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and the prevalence is growing. But while many people have heard the term “autism”, they may not fully know what… Continue Reading →
