“Education disruption is the ‘shadow pandemic’ that could eclipse the health crisis in its impact. And with mounting learning gaps and lagging policy, Canadian students are falling behind their global peers.”
https://www.macleans.ca/longforms/covid-19-pandemic-disrupted-schooling-impact/
A Message about Fall After-school Programs from Jodi Thompson, City Programs Manager
We are very excited to welcome kids back to our after-school programs in the coming weeks. This semester our BLAST, LED and VITAL programs will provide 145 spaces of intentional programming designed to encourage socialization, physical activity and counteract the negative mental health impacts of pandemic on kids aged 6-18. I’m particularly thrilled to share the changes to our new and revamped VITAL program, which will we will be piloting as a hybrid online/in-person program with you today!
At the time of writing, we have not received permission to be in our partner schools but we hope that a return to in-person programming will be possible in early 2022. After discussions with our families and TDSB partners, we will be continuing BLAST (for elementary school-aged kids) and LED (for middle school-aged kids) online for the fall. Stay tuned to our social media and website for the most current updates about our programming.
Introducing the All-New VITAL!
Our after-school staff have risen to the challenges of the pandemic and devised new and exciting ways to engage with the vulnerable youth that we serve. We’ve taken our wealth of learnings to create a new online/in-person hybrid version of our VITAL program that will give marginalized High School youth access to mentored programming consisting of:
- Opportunities for youth to gain up to 20 community volunteer hours and practise community engagement
- 6 IN-PERSON meet-ups, (pandemic permitting) to connect in person and practise leadership skills while building community through shared experiences and experiencing a variety of fun opportunities that the city has to offer.
- 2 leadership retreats – an introductory fall retreat and a spring retreat, to consolidate leadership learnings and expand their personal networks.
- 32 weeks of core leadership programming of Moorelands Kids’ Habits + Qualities curriculum
- 4 job-skills preparedness workshops
- Weekly group mentoring
- Open and interactive conversations about age-group specific challenges: e.g. social anxiety, trust-building, collaboration
