The Activator cycle begins each fall. After completing the cycle organizations are considered an Activator for that program year.
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Quality out-of-school time experiences play an important role in helping Saint Paul's youth recognize and achieve their greatest potential; that’s why we are committed to continuous program improvement through the Sprockets Activator Improvement Cycle. Participation in the cycle helps your organization improve the quality of your programs and the outcomes and experiences of your youth participants.
What’s the Activator commitment?
Fall
Attend Quality Kick Off in September.
The Kick off is a time for your team to learn about the cycle, hear how other organizations leverage data for improvement, and target your goals and next steps for your improvement cycle. Attendees dive deeper into other topics around program quality improvement through a variety of workshop opportunities.
Collect Data that provides a snapshot of your program to prepare for M3. Data may include YPQA self assessments, an external assessment provided by Sprockets, attendance/participation data, or whatever data you are currently collecting. Not collecting data? This is a great process to start thinking about the data to collect that will help you improve your program.
December/January
Attend Making Meaning with Multiple Data Sets (M3) in December or January. Staff teams attend M3 and analyze participation, program experience, youth outcomes, and quality practices data in order to form improvement plans. Making Meaning with Multiple Data Sets (M3) is a day long faciltated workshop or "M3 Huddle" process for teams from organizations to review data from all the tools used at their sites (multiple data sets), interpet the data (making meaning) and identify key goals for improvement.
February
Submit a program improvement plan and begin implementing your plan.
Spring
Work on your improvement plan, take advantage of professional development with Sprockets or in the community that strengthen your goal area, meet as a staff team to check in on progress towards goals, do any follow up assessments (post assessments, mini observations, etc.) to see if you have made an impact on your goals.
May
Celebrate! While some goals will continue on into the summer and next year, many programs will experience change in how their staff communicate about improvements and provide quality programming for youth!
Have questions? Contact Jocelyn.Wiedow@ci.stpaul.mn.us