ReCharge! Training Center | Train-the-Trainer Tools | Model Outreach Programs: Securing and Retaining Extra Help to Implement ReCharge!


		Two schools in Pike County, Alabama — Troy City Elementary and Banks Elementary School — were the focus of the Alabama Action for Healthy Kids Team's efforts to employ ReCharge! to, among other things, improve the quality of snacks within an existing after-school program serving approximately 110 students. The Team learned that, as with many projects, among the biggest challenges is simply securing qualified, reliable supervisory personnel for implementation and oversight. Here's how one Team addressed the problem: Tapping Into the Nearby Educational Community The Alabama Action for Healthy Kids Team decided to partner with nearby Troy University, a local undergraduate and graduate liberal-arts institution with a history as a teacher's college and a mandate of community involvement. The Team's aim was to enlist a paid volunteer student, or students, from the university to work as part of the ReCharge! program at both Troy City and Banks, implementing numerous elements of the ReCharge! activities in the role of valuable "aide." The Team placed ads in campus publications describing the modestly-paid but basically volunteer position as providing invaluable experience for students majoring in nutrition, nursing, physical education, teaching, and youth counseling. In the end, an intern was successfully hired for each of two semesters at ten hours per week. Monday, Wednesday and Friday afternoons between 3:00 and 5:00 p.m., the student employee worked at Troy Elementary, and Tuesday and Thursday at Banks, providing invaluable, indeed essential, assistance to existing after-school staff at both schools for a very modest sum. Here is some valuable information passed on by the Alabama Action for Healthy Kids Team: Tip #1: When considering student interns/paid volunteers, there are numerous academic majors to which ReCharge! has relevance — not just physical education but such majors as Health Promotion, Kinesiology, Social Marketing, Exercise Physiology and of course Dietary Science. Tip #2: College students can be particularly helpful in the evaluation component of ReCharge! for such work-intensive tasks as data collection and interviewing. Tip #3: Training of student volunteers or paid interns is essential. Alabama Action for Healthy Kids Team members did one-on-one ReCharge! training of students, carefully reviewing DVD information, curriculum materials by theme, etc. Tip #4: Hours spent working in an after-school program can, depending on the professor and school, contribute to course credit and/or teacher-certification for education majors, so many education students will view taking part in ReCharge! as an opportunity. Tip #5: An occupational hazard of working with students is their sometimes unreliable schedules — commitments to coursework and class schedules can, frustratingly, interfere with after-school activities. Ideally, try to get a student to commit for a single, entire semester, or even a school year. Tip #6: The more mature the student, the better. But high-school students also make good assistants — not qualified to oversee ReCharge! activities, but helpful nonetheless in everything from signing after-school participants in and storing backpacks to serving snacks and signing younger children out when parents arrive for pickup. Contact Information Christy Hill 334-566-7600 x 2885 steps@troycable.net

Two schools in Pike County, Alabama — Troy City Elementary and Banks Elementary School — were the focus of the Alabama Action for Healthy Kids Team's efforts to employ ReCharge! to, among other things, improve the quality of snacks within an existing after-school program serving approximately 110 students.

The Team learned that, as with many projects, among the biggest challenges is simply securing qualified, reliable supervisory personnel for implementation and oversight.

Here's how one Team addressed the problem:

Tapping Into the Nearby Educational Community

The Alabama Action for Healthy Kids Team decided to partner with nearby Troy University, a local undergraduate and graduate liberal-arts institution with a history as a teacher's college and a mandate of community involvement.

The Team's aim was to enlist a paid volunteer student, or students, from the university to work as part of the ReCharge! program at both Troy City and Banks, implementing numerous elements of the ReCharge! activities in the role of valuable "aide."

The Team placed ads in campus publications describing the modestly-paid but basically volunteer position as providing invaluable experience for students majoring in nutrition, nursing, physical education, teaching, and youth counseling.

In the end, an intern was successfully hired for each of two semesters at ten hours per week. Monday, Wednesday and Friday afternoons between 3:00 and 5:00 p.m., the student employee worked at Troy Elementary, and Tuesday and Thursday at Banks, providing invaluable, indeed essential, assistance to existing after-school staff at both schools for a very modest sum.

Here is some valuable information passed on by the Alabama Action for Healthy Kids Team:

Tip #1: When considering student interns/paid volunteers, there are numerous academic majors to which ReCharge! has relevance — not just physical education but such majors as Health Promotion, Kinesiology, Social Marketing, Exercise Physiology and of course Dietary Science.

Tip #2: College students can be particularly helpful in the evaluation component of ReCharge! for such work-intensive tasks as data collection and interviewing.

Tip #3: Training of student volunteers or paid interns is essential. Alabama Action for Healthy Kids Team members did one-on-one ReCharge! training of students, carefully reviewing DVD information, curriculum materials by theme, etc.

Tip #4: Hours spent working in an after-school program can, depending on the professor and school, contribute to course credit and/or teacher-certification for education majors, so many education students will view taking part in ReCharge! as an opportunity.

Tip #5: An occupational hazard of working with students is their sometimes unreliable schedules — commitments to coursework and class schedules can, frustratingly, interfere with after-school activities. Ideally, try to get a student to commit for a single, entire semester, or even a school year.

Tip #6: The more mature the student, the better. But high-school students also make good assistants — not qualified to oversee ReCharge! activities, but helpful nonetheless in everything from signing after-school participants in and storing backpacks to serving snacks and signing younger children out when parents arrive for pickup.

Contact Information

Christy Hill
334-566-7600 x 2885
steps@troycable.net