April 5, 2023 APOST Relaunches as Independent Nonprofit After 13 years of support for more than 150 out-of-school time (OST) organizations in Allegheny County, Allegheny Partners for Out-of-School Time (APOST) has relaunched as an independent nonprofit organization. About APOST APOST is an intermediary, convener, and champion of the out-of-school community in Allegheny County. OST programs, which typically take place during afterschool hours and summer months, provide youth access to enrichment activities. Enrolling Children in OST Programs OST programs provide safe and supervised spaces for children and youth to engage in academic and enrichment programming when they would otherwise be unsupervised or unengaged. Enrollment for OST programs is now open throughout Allegheny County. Please use the Allegheny County Child Care tool at www.alleghenychildcare.org/welcome to find more information about programs in your neighborhood. Inaugural Executive Director and Board Leadership As an independent nonprofit, Executive Director Dr. Karen Dreyer will manage APOST. Dreyer has focused her career on increasing access to opportunities for learning and healthy development for young people. Most recently, she served as the Director of Child Nutrition Programs at Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank. An inaugural Board of Directors will join Dreyer in her leadership. Kathryn Vargas, the director of the City of Pittsburgh Department of Parks and Recreation, will chair the board. Find the full list of board members on the APOST website. Learn More To learn more, visit the APOST website.
August 19, 2020 Virtual Back to Out-of-School-Time Conference Join Allegheny Partners for Out-of-School-Time (APOST) from August 24–September 10, 2020 for their Virtual Back to Out-of-School-Time Conference! About Over a period of three weeks, the Virtual Back to Out-of-School-Time Conference will offer relevant workshops to assist professionals in continuing to provide high-quality programming for youth during this challenging time. This Conference is open to any youth practitioner who desires to increase their skills in working with youth in out-of-school-time programs or mentoring relationships. If there is a workshop that you would like to attend but are not able to due to schedule conflicts, recordings and resources for all workshop offerings will be available for at least one month after all of the workshops have concluded. Available Workshops A Summer in Review: Conducting In-Person Programming in the Foreseeable Future Monday, August 24 | 10 – 11:30 a.m. Wellness for Black Young People in a Racist Society during COVID-19 Tuesday, August 25 | 10 – 11:30 a.m. How to Handle Your Workforce Post COVID-19? – Organizational Skill Gaps with Leaner Staffing Wednesday, August 26 | 10:30 a.m. – 12 p.m. Outdoor STEM in an Online Classroom Thursday, August 27 | 2 – 3:30 p.m. Keeping Kids Entertained and Learning During COVID-19 and Beyond Friday, August 28 | 1 – 2 p.m. Engaging Your Students with Project-Based Learning Online Monday, August 31 | 1 – 2:30 p.m. What You Need to Know about the Current Pandemic Tuesday, September 1 | 1 – 2 p.m. Lessons Learned: OST in the Virtual Space and Zoom into Hands-On Learning Wednesday, September 2 | 10 – 11:30 a.m. Increasing Program Enrollment by Advertising on the Allegheny County Child Care Finder Thursday, September 3 | 1 – 2 p.m. Deep and Simple Interactions in OST Virtual Programming and Yes, And’ing a Virtually New Normal Tuesday, September 8 | 10 – 11:30 a.m. PBS 101 Middle School Track Wednesday, September 9 | 1 – 2 p.m. Making Academic Content Exciting with Narrative Games Thursday, September 10 | 10 – 11:30 a.m. Registration To view all workshop descriptions and register, visit the full Conference Agenda. Registration links will be included at the bottom of each event description. More Information For questions, contact Jaron Paul via email at jaron.paul@unitedwayswpa.org.
August 10, 2020 Child Care and Education Planning Tools Available Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many early learning programs and all schools in Pennsylvania had to close abruptly and drastically adjust their operations. In turn, this left many families without access to child care and education services for their children. In response to this crisis, Trying Together and our partners worked rapidly to develop several new platforms and resources to support the continuity of care and education for families in Southwestern Pennsylvania and to support the early learning professionals who provide these services. To learn about our tools and resources, continue reading below. Share this flyer with your network. Allegheny Child Care In partnership with the Allegheny County Department of Human Services and Allegheny Partners for Out-of-School-Time (APOST), Trying Together developed Allegheny Child Care. By using this online tool, parents and caregivers of young children can search for available child care spots at early learning, after-school, out-of-school, summer camp, and virtual programs in Allegheny County. To use the tool, visit the Allegheny Child Care website. For additional support in finding child care and/or funding your child care needs, visit the ELRC Region 5 website or call 412.350.3577. Family Care and Education Forum In response to uncertainty surrounding the 2020-21 school year, Trying Together launched the Family Care & Education Forum. This new resource connects parents and caregivers across Southwestern Pennsylvania and provides a space to ask questions, network, and support one another. Upon signing up, users will be able to post questions, respond to comments, and learn more about care and education opportunities in their area. To discuss your care and education plans for this fall with other families, visit the new Family Care and Education Forum. Early Learning Resource Center (ELRC) Region 5 Pennsylvania’s Early Learning Resource Centers (ELRCs) provide a single point-of-contact for families, early learning service providers, and communities to gain information and access services that support high-quality child care and early learning programs. To request support and learn more, visit the ELRC Region 5 website or call 412.350.3577.
August 6, 2020 School-Age Funding Opportunity in Allegheny County If your Out-of-School-Time program needs funding support, check out this new school-age funding opportunity in Allegheny County. About With many Allegheny County schools starting the year full or partially remote, families with school-age children will face several challenges this fall. The critical work of Out-of-School-Time programs in supporting children and families is more important now than ever. The Allegheny Department of Human Services (DHS), Trying Together, and United Way’s Allegheny County Partners for Out-of-School-Time (APOST) joined forces to support your work. Funding is available for both in-person Community Learning Hubs, as well as Virtual Pods and Programming. Interested applicants should review the information below and apply by Friday, August 14. Funding Details Funding can be requested from Community Hub programming through December 31, 2020 for staffing, learning materials, personal protective equipment (masks), cleaning supplies, technology for staff only, building upgrades (wifi), transportation, and additional partners to provide enrichment activities and/or tutoring support. For Virtual Pods and Programming, funding will not exceed $50,000 per program for programming through December 31, 2020. This funding may be used for staffing, learning materials, online learning platforms, technology for staff and/or students, and additional partners to provide enrichment activities and/or tutoring support. Eligibility To receive funding, programs must meet a list of requirements, including requirements related to, but not limited to, staffing, enrollment, health, safety, and reporting. Before submitting an application, please review the full list of requirements carefully. Only apply if this is something you are committed to pursuing. If this is not the right fit for your program, there are many other ways to support children and families this year. Apply for Funding If your program is interested in providing this expanded service, please complete this online application form and submit a budget by Friday, August 14. Submit your budget to Amy Malen via email at amy.malen@alleghenycounty.us. Please note that there is no guarantee that funding will be available for all agencies that are interested in providing this service. DHS, Trying Together, and the United Way will review all applications submitted and assess how to best match interested agencies with specific needs and available funds. Funding will be available for both in-person and virtual offerings, however, priority will be given to in-person requests given child care needs. More Information For more information, please review this document.
June 12, 2020 Allegheny Child Care is Growing As of this week, we are excited to announce that we have expanded the Allegheny Child Care search tool to include: after-school; out-of-school; and summer programs! If you provide one or more of these services and have not already confirmed your information, we ask that you update your listing as soon as possible at providers.alleghenychildcare.org. Promote Your Out of School & Summer Programs Now If your program re-opened as part of Allegheny County’s move to the “green phase” last week, we hope that your first week back has been a welcomed return for you and your children, families, and staff. By updating your information, the Allegheny Child Care tool will assist you in promoting and marketing your program(s) to families. In turn, this will allow you to expedite the process for getting children enrolled, thus making an often stressful task less burdensome for families especially at this time. If you have any questions or issues please: email us at info@alleghenychildcare.org; review our FAQ guide; or join us for our next Virtual Director Roundtable discussion on Tuesday, June 16 at 6:00 p.m. when we will share details on the recent updates to the Allegheny Child Care tool and answer questions. Thank you for your assistance. Updating Your Information In order to add the after-school, out-of-school, and summer-time programs to the platform, we pulled public data currently available from our partners at Allegheny Partners for Out of School Time (APOST) and United Way of Southwestern Pennsylvania. As information may have changed due to COVID-19, we would appreciate you taking a few minutes to review the information listed for your program(s) on the platform and then updating it accordingly at providers.alleghenychildcare.org. In particular, please update your: current operational status (open/closed and availability); age group(s) served; and basic profile information. You will receive regular email reminders to update your vacancy information so parents searching for care can find your program. More Information From the COVID-19 crisis, Allegheny Child Care is a unique pilot project that has been developed to support the child care needs of families. Caregivers and parents of young children can now search available child care spots at Allegheny County early learning programs in real-time with the Allegheny Child Care tool.
May 13, 2020 Virtual Summer Conference for Out-of-School Time Join the Allegheny Partners for Out-of-School Time (APOST) from May 26 through June 5, 2020 for their Virtual Summer Conference for Out-of-School Time! About The Virtual Summer Conference for Out-of-School Time will offer relevant workshops to help professionals continue to provide quality programming for youth during this troubling time. This conference is open to any youth practitioners who desire to increase their skills in working with youth in out-of-school time programs or in mentoring relationships. Available Workshops The Virtual Conference will include the following workshops: Afterschool Programming and Communication Pivot during COVID-19 Tuesday, 5/26, 10 – 11 a.m. Presenter: Adeshewa Metzger, Assemble The Power of Parent Engagement: Parents as Partners Tuesday, 5/26, 3 – 4:30 p.m. Presenter: Shannon Prentiss, The Neighborhood Academy Building Resiliency: From Brain Development to Practicing Self-Care in a Virtual World Wednesday, 5/27, 10:30 a.m. – 12 p.m. Presenters: Courtney Smalt, Ling Deng, and Autumn Detchon, Adagio Health Fostering Healthy Transitions Wednesday, 5/27, 3 – 4 p.m. Presenter: Sophia Duck, The Mentoring Partnership Engaging Kids Outside Friday, 5/29, 10:30 a.m. – 12 p.m. Presenters: Lo Zemanek and Kelly Sarkis, Venture Outdoors Yes, And’ing Youth Voice During COVID-19 Friday, 5/29, 1 – 2 p.m. Presenter: Lori Crawford, Improviding The Culturally Inclusive Check-In Monday, 6/1, 1 – 2:30 p.m. Presenters: Adeshea Metzger and Ja’Sonta Roberts, Assemble Staff Wellness and Role Modeling Wednesday, 6/3, 10 – 11:30 a.m. Presenters: Shrenik Gadagkar and Jenny Park, UPMC Children’s Hospital Techniques to Address Helper’s Trauma in OST Providers Friday, 6/5, 10 – 11:30 a.m. Presenter: Debralyn Woodberry-Shaw, ELIE Circle To register and learn more, utilize the links above or view the full conference agenda. More Information For questions or more information, please contact Jaron Paul at jaron.paul@unitedwayswpa.org.
April 28, 2020 APOST Requests Virtual Summer Conference Workshop Submissions The Allegheny Partners for Out-of-School Time (APOST) will be hosting a Virtual Summer Conference for Out-of-School Time from Tuesday, May 26 through Friday, June 5, 2020. At this time, APOST is accepting workshop submissions from education leaders. Continue reading below to learn more. About The Virtual Summer Conference for Out-of-School Time will target youth workers in out-of-school time and summer settings. This includes frontline staff, program managers, executive directors, mentors, and more. In regard to workshop submissions, APOST is looking for depth of experience and expertise rather than breadth. With this, they strongly encourage workshops focused on the following themes: social-emotional learning; community trauma and trauma-informed care; health and wellness in out-of-school time; creating inclusive spaces in out-of-school time; engaging children and parents during COVID-19; how to speak to youth about COVID-19; and ways to successfully implement virtual programming. Workshop sizes will most likely not be capped as this event will be virtual, but facilitation preference will be left up to the presenters. Submit Your Proposal To learn more or submit a proposal, please complete APOST’s online form. All submissions must be received by Tuesday, May 5. Event hosts send out their final decision on Friday, May 8. More Information For questions or more information, contact APOST at 412.456.6876 or apost@uwac.org.
February 20, 2020 (re)Designing Space(s) Recognize that your space isn’t fitting your organization’s needs as well as it could be? Have you or your team thought about making changes, imagined improvements, or started a plan? Join APOST and their guest presenter Heather Mallak of PUBLIC STUD/O at Sarah Heinz House for this interactive workshop aimed to support your space design efforts! About In this training, participants start with a tour of Sarah Heinz House’s facilities to see how rethinking space design has improved their program, then review some examples of low to high budget, high impact transformations that focus on supporting the identified “design drivers” in your space to help you better mold it to fit the needs of your youth. Participants will gain insights from collaborating professionals—architects, designers, and informal learning space providers–who have undertaken larger scale redesign efforts. You’ll leave this session with insights, techniques, and resources for use in co-designing with your intended audience to improve experience. Lunch will be provided and free parking is available. Registration To register, visit the Eventbrite page. More Information For more information, contact APOST at 412.456.6876.
Nurturing Connection to Nature for Health and Wellness Join APOST and Pittsburgh Parks Rx at the Frick Environmental Center on February 28 to learn how spending time in nature can support physical and mental wellness. About Attend this workshop to explore how to plan engaging experiences that nurture a connection to nature by incorporating active play and mindful reflection. Participants will try out activities, share ideas, and receive tools and resources to help you connect youth with nature in parks or any outdoor space! A light lunch will be provided and free parking will be available on site. Registration To register, visit the Eventbrite page. More Information For more information, contact APOST at 412.456.6876.
