Three Steps to Becoming a Youth Advocate

We are SO EXCITED for the 2020 National Virtual Keystone Conference! To get us motivated BGCA's Senior Director of Programs Val Killebrew is here to give us guidance on how to help youth take action about what they are passionate about. Youth of America are purpose driven and motivated to act on causes they believe... Continue Reading →

Teens Take the Lead on Safe Driving

At Boys & Girls Clubs of America, we offer many Targeted Programs to support our three Priority Outcome Areas of Academic Success, Good Character and Citizenship, and Healthy Lifestyles. Programs like Summer Brain Gain, Keystone, and Triple Play. One of my personal favorites? UPS Road Code! If you aren't familiar, UPS Rode Code is BGCA's... Continue Reading →

Parenting During a Pandemic

This post, part of our special series on the Coronavirus outbreak, was written by Omar Guessous, BGCA National Director of Evaluation and Insights. A bad dad joke a day keeps the doctor away. Okay not really, but let’s try anyway. Today, my son asked "Can I have a book mark?" and I burst into tears. 11... Continue Reading →

10 Ways to Communicate Expectations

It's a new year, which is always a great opportunity to renew commitments to personal and professional goals, and to hit the reset button on the things that have been dragging us down. One of these areas at your Club might be behavioral expectations. When expectations are explained, reinforced, and followed, everything at the Club... Continue Reading →

Club Story: Night Out & Night In

I heard about an event that the staff at the Don Kromer Branch of Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Tarrant County puts on, and I absolutely had to hear more! Here's my conversation with Branch Director LaCharles Green on how their Club does recognition in a special way. First, tell me a little bit... Continue Reading →

Setting SMART Goals

As youth development professionals, there is a LOT we want our young people to learn. We want them to graduate from high school with a plan for the future, demonstrate good character and citizenship, and live a healthy lifestyle. We want them to be kind and empathetic and explore their passions. We want them to... Continue Reading →

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 →

Helping Graduates Avoid the Summer Melt

It's graduation season! Read on for tips to prevent summer melt plus a FREE download from the new Diplomas to Degrees program guide! This week I got three graduation announcements in the mail from some special teens in my life! Yep, it’s graduation season and soon we’ll see a flood of cap and gown pictures... Continue Reading →

THAT’S SO META. A Metacognition Primer!

Metacognition is a very big and impressive sounding word. But what is it, why is it important, and how can we encourage it at the Boys & Girls Club? Metacognition is the ability to think about your thoughts with the aim of improving learning. This article from Edutopia gives a helpful metaphor- learning metacognition strategies... Continue Reading →

Keystone Story: MAKE Your MOVE!

Today's guest post is one of a two-part series for the 2018 National Keystone Conference. For the other post, click here! Hi, my name is Vanesa and I am part of this year’s Keystone Conference Steering Committee. It is time for the 51st Keystone Conference. This year’s conference is going to be epic and one... Continue Reading →

High-Quality Activity Ideas from Models of Excellence

Today’s guest post is from Valerie Heron-Duranti, Director of Innovation & Creativity at BGCA.  Models of Excellence: The Center for High Quality Student Work is a collaborative project between Expeditionary Learning Schools and the Harvard Graduate School of Education. It is a curated, open source collection of incredible high-quality Pre K-12th grade student projects to inspire... Continue Reading →

Free Printable STEM Posters

Looking for some new art for your program areas? One of my favorite websites, A Mighty Girl, has free printable posters celebrating pioneering women in Science. They are absolutely beautiful, and include NASA astronaut Mae Jemison, keynote speaker at BGCA's 2017 National Conference! A Mighty Girl not only links to the posters, but gives a... Continue Reading →

Club Story: Cooking Up Success!

Boys & Girls Clubs offer unique opportunities for our members to be successful. Today I bring you a conversation I had with Heather Peterson from Boys & Girls Clubs of Lac Courte Orielles, one of the first Boys & Girls Clubs on a Native American Reservation. One of their members recently won a national Boys... Continue Reading →

Club Story: A Vision of Family

I am thrilled to bring you a conversation I recently had with Floretta Robinson, Club Director at THE PLAYERS Championship Unit of Boys & Girls Clubs of North Florida, located in wonderful, glorious St. Augustine. (Which, full disclosure, holds a VERY SPECIAL place in my heart as I graduated from Flagler College and then worked... 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 →

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