CAN is excited to host our third BOOST workshop strand! Due to the evolving nature of how our before school, after school, and summer programs are being asked to respond to COVID, CAN shifted the focus of our strand to explore response, recovery, and reopening from different vantage points and perspectives – Site Coordinators, Program/District Managers, and Systems Level Leaders.

Across the nation, afterschool and summer programs equip millions of children to succeed in school, connect with their communities, and prepare them for productive futures. CAN furthers this mission by convening various stakeholders to focus on the mission before the organization; manage through trust, not control; promote others, not the individual; and build constellations, not stars.

CAN has organized its workshops into 3 different formats:

• CANdid Conversations: We CAN engage in cross-conversations that are meaningful and field-driven. 
• CANdid Input Sessions: We CAN engage field practitioners in shaping critical tools and resources for our field. 
• CANdid Trainings: We CAN learn together to gain new knowledge, share resources, tools and make connections.

Each session will also identify opportunities for continued engagement with CAN beyond the conference. We hope you join us! Together We CAN! 

“There is always enough time for the right work.” -Adrienne Maree Brown

Wednesday, April 28

10:30AM – 12:15PM
Get Up, Stand Up- Join the Site Coordinator Movement! 
Troy Selvey, Program Specialist, California AfterSchool Network, Sacramento, CA; Julie Sesser, Specialist, ASAPconnect, San Jose, CA + Friends

We CAN Conversation: Do you want to be part of something bigger than yourself? Are you interested in networking with other leaders in the field to build knowledge around promising practices, tools, and resources? This session will provide an opportunity to learn about the Site Coordinator Network and TA Fellows and Coaches School of Leadership and Facilitation. Along with other opportunities to link up with current members to learn about the Network and how you can get involved. It will also highlight how during the tough times of COVID-19 these groups and others from across the state of California came together to help to create spaces like CAN and Friends as a space for site coordinators to gather, to share, to learn, and most importantly build community. They will share how even through these tough times and all the uncertainty we have faced they still found a way to stay connected. Even If you are not a site coordinator this is an opportunity to learn how you can support your site coordinators in this work, we encourage you to attend as well.  Join us to find out how you can get connected and be part of the state-wide network designed to support Site Coordinators! 

Audience: ULA, MLA, DS, CB, PK, E, M, H

2:00PM – 4:00PM 
Tools to Support a Diverse and Thriving Youth Worker Workforce
Kourtney Andrada, Senior Program Director, School-Based Programs, Girls Inc. of Alameda County, Oakland, CA; Darell Parsons, Education Programs Consultant, Expanded Learning Division, Sacramento, CA; Aleah Rosario, Senior Specialist, Workforce Initiatives, California AfterSchool Network, Sacramento, CA

We CAN Training: Is youth work a stepping stone for your staff? Or are some of your staff showing signs of being a youth worker “lifer?” Or something in-between? All are encouraged to join this session to help make visible the many experiences of youth workers, and how intentional workforce strategies can support a diverse and thriving youth worker workforce. Hear from the Chairs of the statewide Expanded Learning Workforce Implementation Committee about tools that can be applied to help staff map their careers, and resources to ensure reopening policy and program decisions uplift youth workers.

Audience: ULA, MLA, DS, CB, PK, E, M, H

Thursday, April 29

10:00AM – 12:00PM
CAN Suite of Quality Tools: Building the Right Tool for the Right Job at the Right Time
Tiffany Gipson, Director of Quality Initiatives, Troy Selvey, Program Specialist, California AfterSchool Network, Sacramento, CA + Friends

We CAN Training: CAN is currently in the middle of piloting New Quality Tools, which include a Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) Guidebook, a new online Expanded Learning Program Quality Assessment System, and a framework to explore the intersection of Equity, Quality, and CQI.  This training will model how to use all of the tools to think critically and intentionally about how to design a program to meet the current needs of your community. Learn how to use the data from the online system to inform your CQI cycles and filter all of that information through a lens of Equity. 

Audience: ULA, MLA, DS, CB, PK, E, M, H

1:00PM – 2:15PM
Tools to Support Your Advocacy for State (AB86) and Federal Stimulus Funding
Heather Williams, Director of Policy & Outreach, Jeff Davis, Executive Director, California AfterSchool Network, Sacramento, CA

We CAN Training/Input Session: There has been significant recognition of the essential role of Expanded Learning programs in supporting our students, families, and communities in COVID-19 response and recovery. This recognition has resulted in an unprecedented investment in afterschool and summer learning at both the state and federal levels. This funding is often managed at the local level so programs will still need to advocate locally to ensure funds are invested into existing afterschool and summer learning structures. CAN team members will share newly released resources from CAN and our other partners that can help support these efforts.  Come learn how these tools and resources can support you and provide input on what additional supports you may need.

Audience: ULA, MLA, DS, CB, PK, E, M, H

3:00PM – 4:30PM
Expanded Learning as Centers of Whole Child Health & Wellness
Jeff Davis, Executive Director, Tiffany Gibson, Director of Quality Initiatives, Melissa Perez, Program Specialist, California AfterSchool Network, Sacramento, CA

We CAN Training: CAN convened a multi-sector, Whole Child Health and Wellness collaborative from 2019-20  to establish a statewide statement of the strategic direction that identifies Expanded Learning programs as the vehicle to advance whole child-whole family health and wellness. With the increased State and Federal funding that will be available to both afterschool and summer programs, CAN will explore how to use this new framework to consider a different mindset of how to design programs to meet the evolving needs of the expanded learning field in the current context of reopening schools. Join us to learn more about this work, and how to apply these strategies and recently released resources to help grow your work. 

Audience: ULA, MLA, CB, PK, E, M, H

Friday, April 30

9:15AM – 11:15AM
Changing the Narrative: Using Equity as the Foundation for Systems Change
Jeff Davis, Executive Director, Heather Williams, Director of Policy & Outreach, Tiffany Gipson, Director of Quality Initiatives, Troy Selvey, Program Specialist, California AfterSchool Network, Sacramento, CA; ASAPconnect + Friends

We CAN Conversation/Training: In the session, participants will start to understand what systems thinking is, identify the systems in which they exist and have influence, and begin to understand how empathy and equity can begin to redefine what transformational change and success in a system could really look like. CAN will explore how we anchor in Equity as a driver when using both Compassionate Systems (a systems thinking framework used by many in the CA Expanded Learning field and the greater K-12 system) and Continuous Quality Improvement to change not only outcomes but processes for approaching the redesign of an educational system where the invisible are seen and the quieted voices are not only heard but lead the conversation. We will use the SEL framework as a way to simplify and ground the discussion in language that is familiar to the Expanded Learning field.

Audience: ULA, MLA, CB, PK, E, M, H