Center helps shine light on summer youth programs while providing key resources to organizers

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Children play at Lobs & Lessons, a youth enrichment program that promotes life skills through tennis. (File photo)
Children play at Lobs & Lessons, a youth enrichment program that promotes life skills through tennis. (File photo)

Virginia Commonwealth University offers a bevy of youth programs, and no time of year brings more kids to its campuses than the summer. Individual departments and schools throughout the university provide unique ways for kids ranging from young children to high school seniors to explore their interests and have a great time.

The variety of programs and the breadth of university units offering them has made it difficult in the past to gain a comprehensive look at the offerings. Two new efforts, however, are making it simpler both for university officials organizing programs to understand their responsibilities and how they fit under the university umbrella and for interested members of the public who are seeking fun camps and other youth programs.

The public-facing effort is a centralized listing of VCU summer youth programs. The list, which can be found at community.vcu.edu/community-resources/summer-youth-programs-/, marks the first time that the university’s myriad youth programs have been available in one place. Now, instead of hunting through individual program pages in search of a good fit for their kids, parents can simply use the centralized list to research their choices.

Through the list, they will find activities to match any interest, ranging from animation and orchestra to dental hygiene careers and chemistry research.

“VCU offers a plethora of engaging youth activities during both summer and the school year, and now we’ve made summer opportunities accessible to the community,” said Tina Carter, director of the Mary and Frances Youth Center.

A related effort is the development of a centralized process to address the safety of youth on campus. VCU launched its youth protection policy, Safety and Protection of Minors, in July 2016. The policy, which was created through a working group chaired by the Division of Community Engagement and the Integrity and Compliance Office, brings consistency to the ways that youth-oriented programs are organized across the university and makes clear to organizers the requirements they must follow to host youth activities.

The Mary and Frances Youth Center manages the program, under the leadership of Alyssa King, program specialist for the center. VCU is at the forefront of youth policy development, and King and Carter recently wrote about the development of the policy for the Association of Public & Land-Grant Universities website.

“Because we have an effective policy with associated practices at VCU, we have a strong message that we can share with families — that we take the safety of their children very seriously,” said Catherine Howard, Ph.D., vice provost for the Division of Community Engagement.

More than 60 programs registered with the Mary and Frances Youth Center during the youth protection policy’s first year, and more than 60 have registered this year. The program registration has enabled the creation of the central summer listing. A simple checklist provided to programs makes it easy for organizers to confirm that they are taking each of the risk management steps that they should be, touching on topics such as the screening of counselors with biennial background checks.

“They just have to follow the checklist and if they have questions there’s an office they can turn to,” King said.

VCU Residential Life and Housing is among those groups that have benefited from the initiative. The department hosts five to eight programs each year for middle school and high school students. The toughest challenge is oversight and enforcement of chaperone protocol in the residence halls overnight, said Nichole Smithson, assistant director for conferences and special projects with Residential Life and Housing.

Smithson said the Mary and Frances Youth Center’s efforts have helped “tremendously.”

“Now we have something we can refer to that is stronger than just a ‘best practice’ to ensure groups are taking safety seriously,” Smithson said. “We can breathe a little easier knowing we're working to educate and train program coordinators and chaperones prior to youth arrival on campus.”

Carter said the youth protection policy has been helpful for her in the management of the Lobs & Lessons program, a youth enrichment program that promotes life skills through tennis.

“I’ve got this very clear template now,” she said. “It helps me track each of my employees and know when they need a new background check or training.”

King said programs that register through the youth protection policy now also turn to the Mary and Frances Youth Center with questions about best practices for youth programs. King said the center is able to help with most questions, often by helping identify relevant topics outlined in the Division of Community Engagement’s Youth Programs Manual.

“It’s a great complementary resource and we’re usually able to answer any questions that they have,” King said.

Smithson said the improved education and resources have streamlined the safety and protection of minors at VCU and provided a major benefit to youth-related program coordinators.

“It is easy to ask a coordinator to ensure youth are safe and protected while on campus, but it’s not enough,” Smithson said. “VCU was proactive in creating this policy, education and training and provided the tools to help everyone involved with youth minimize risks. Our young visitors receive the biggest benefit.”