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Out-of-School Time Initiative

Children's Health

Resources

PASE is collecting resources from local and national organizations that can help programs support the health of the young people the serve.

YouthSuccessNYC Youth Communication publication that provides health resources for teens and staff
Download additional resources here

Healthy Out-of-School Time

Childhood obesity is epidemic in New York City: Barely half of New York City elementary school students are at a healthy weight, and a staggering 42% of children in Head Start in the city are overweight or obese. These children suffer from discrimination, decreased self-esteem, depression, and lower quality of life; are highly likely to be overweight or obese in adulthood; and are at greatly increased risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, asthma, early maturation, eating disorders, and lower life expectancy. By 2010, the root causes of the obesity epidemic – poor nutrition and physical inactivity – are on track to become the leading causes of preventable deaths in the U.S., and the situation is even worse in New York City.

With their flexible structure, safe facilities, excellent role models, and practice of meeting the needs and interests of the populations it serves, afterschool programs are ideally suited both to overcome the barriers to physical activity and to promote good nutrition and healthy lifestyles among the young people most in need.

But in order to fulfill their potential in these areas, programs need additional support to implement effective practices that will engage youth on issues of nutrition and physical activity. While afterschool programs and their staff are uniquely positioned to support and promote healthy lifestyles in the young people they serve, they often lack the training and resources necessary to do so.

Recognizing afterschool programs’ potential to improve the health of low-income children and their need for capacity-building services to meet that potential, PASE created the Healthy Out-of-School Time (HOST) initiative, which aims to help afterschool programs become centers of support for the health of young people and begin to reverse the dire trends in childhood obesity.

Survey on Children’s Health

As the only organization connecting New York City’s more than 1,600 afterschool programs, the PASE determined that while excellent research is available on a national level, more information was needed regarding the prevalence of health issues among New York City youth and the knowledge of afterschool program staff around the topics that arise most frequently.

To that end, PASE distributed the Survey on Children and Youth Health in New York City to 3,000 supervisors and managers of New York City afterschool programs. The survey requested information on various health issues common to young people during their school age years, to assess their prevalence, as well as gauge the knowledge and interest of staff.

The results of this survey have broad implications for the field of afterschool and the forms of support that are needed to enable afterschool programs to improve the health of the young people they serve.

Read the results of the survey

Forum on Children’s Health

On November 7 th, 2008 PASE, in coordination with the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, hosted a forum entitled Responding to the Children’s Health Epidemic: Using Out-of-School Time to Promote Healthy Lifestyles. The forum brought together leading researchers, practitioners, and other stakeholders in youth health to discuss the role of afterschool programs as supporters of children’s health and to expand the afterschool field’s knowledge and awareness of this critical issue.

Follow the links below to view the three keynote presentations from the event:

• Dr. Lynn Silver, Assistant Commissioner of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, on the childhood obesity epidemic in New York City


• Dr. Shelly Wimpfheimer, former Executive Director of PASE, on the findings of PASE’s survey of afterschool programs on issues surrounding children’s health.


• Dr. Paul Weiss, Senior Program Director of Asphalt Green, on why afterschool programs are uniquely equipped to address these issues and what strategies programs can use to begin to make a difference.

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