At the heart of the YMCA lie four core values: Caring, Honesty, Respect, and Responsibility.

The YMCA’s core values shape the design and delivery of every Y program. Today, technology can play an important role in supporting these values and making sure they are upheld across youth programs. Let’s explore how digital tools can help YMCAs reinforce these guiding principles.

Caring: Create a Supportive Environment

Children need to feel like they are part of a welcoming community where they feel seen and respected by people who believe in them. Research shows that a persistently positive culture and climate have been linked to positive youth development. 

One powerful way to help create and maintain a supportive and caring environment is through technology.

  • Enhance Communication: Foster strong connections with families by implementing the right tech tools to facilitate engagement. A quality communication app allows you to share general updates and foster direct communication with program parents, ensuring that everyone feels heard and able to give feedback.
  • Offer Robust Staff Training: A positive environment starts with staff. The right youth management platform helps you offer a smooth and comprehensive onboarding experience to your staff where culture and climate are clearly articulated and behavioral expectations are set. 
  • Ensure Safety Measures: Provide a secure environment by ensuring that all safety information is securely stored in one place. Collect emergency, medical, and check-in and check-out information in one platform that’s easily updatable for parents and accessible to staff.

Inline CTA- Family Engagement Toolkit

Honesty: Foster Trust Through Transparency

Build trust with staff, families, and participants by being open and honest in all aspects of your program management by:

  • Giving Real-Time Updates: Send real-time updates to families on their children’s activities, announcements, program changes, and more. Keeping everyone in the loop on all the new and upcoming aspects of your program ensures that families and participants are prepared every day.
  • Offer Robust Staff Training: A positive environment starts with staff. The right youth management platform helps you offer a smooth and comprehensive onboarding experience to your staff where culture and climate are clearly articulated and behavioral expectations are set. 

  • Conducting Surveys: Gathering feedback into your programs allows for continuous improvement and opens dialog with parents, staff, and participants. Plus, you can use the data to communicate your program’s impact to the community!

Respect: Promote an Inclusive Community

Create an atmosphere of mutual respect and foster an environment where everyone in your program feels valued by:

  • Designing Your Program to be Inclusive: An inclusive environment doesn’t start from day 1 of your program. It starts from the first day of program planning. From hiring staff that reflect the demographics of the youth you serve to providing accessible resources to their families, to offering professional development that trains staff on inclusivity, choose a tech partner that gives you the resources you need to plan your program so that all children and their families feel welcomed and valued.

  • Using Accessible Communication: Engage technology that provides customizable language settings so families can send and receive messages in multiple languages to ensure that every parent and caregiver can stay connected and informed.
 

Responsibility: Encourage Accountability & Life Skill Growth

Give kids the opportunity for personal growth and support responsible choices and actions by:

  • Implementing Enrichment Curriculum: Equip youth in your program with essential life skills that help them navigate daily life and promote positive personal growth by incorporating an engaging enrichment curriculum. Look for a curriculum that includes leadership skill development for middle schoolers to foster responsibility, compassion, and give them the skills they need to become impactful leaders.

  • Tracking Participant Attendance: Help youth learn about the importance of commitment by tracking attendance and participation.


Supporting Your Mission

Arly’s suite of tools and resources can help you ensure that all your YMCA youth programs support your core values and empower kids by helping them learn and model your guiding principles. 

Arly helps support your mission by providing:

  • A Family Communication App that allows you to stay connected through photos, announcements, newsletters, and direct messages and includes customizable language settings

  • An award-winning Professional Development solution that includes self-paced online learning modules, staff training guides, personalized professional learning, and a resource library.

  • Management Tools & Resources including enrollment, participant management, a centralized database for health and safety information, program planning resources, and more.

  • Arly Explorers, an engaging and fun enrichment curriculum that teaches valuable life skills and influences positive program culture and climate.

  • Measurement & Reporting Tools so you can track your impact, gather community feedback, and prove your program’s quality.

  • So much more!

We understand that great youth programs don’t just happen. They take time, know-how, planning, and dedication. Let Arly help you simplify the management of your youth programs so you can focus on what matters most - empowering the youth you serve! Want to learn more? Request a demo today!
family engagement professional development measurement & reporting curriculum program management