Working with School-Age Children

Here is a practical look at the roles of adults in children’s lives outside of the classroom examined through the experiences of real people in a wide variety of settings and with a diversity of needs and insights. Working with School-Age Children helps to define the role of professional child and youth workers in the lives of children and families. The book builds on a foundation of child development theory and provides a historical overview of the subject and an overview of school-age care in other parts of the world to help ground the work done by the people represented in the book. The book describes the issues children face in today’s world and the attributes and skills critical for people who work with school-age children. Included are strategies for adult involvement, healthy and productive activities, and guidelines for developing and sustaining afterschool programs.

Marlene A. Bumgarner is a college instructor and consultant who works with schools and afterschool programs to develop high quality experiences for children and staff. For many years she was a single parent and depended on school age programs to provide her four children safe and nurturing care while she was at work. As the need for afterschool programs grew in her community and the nation she was drawn into the world of lawmaking, fundraising, and advocating for the needs of school age programs. She developed courses and certificates at her community college and participated in professional development workshops and seminars resulting in more than 50 colleges doing the same. Both personally and professionally, Dr. Bumgarner continues to be committed to improving the quality of out of school time for all children and is a frequent conference speaker. Mary Hoshiko Haughey has worked with children and youth in YMCA program and administration for 37 years. Mary is currently the Vice President of Operations for Youth Development and Social Responsibility with the YMCA of Silicon Valley. In this role, Mary provides direct leadership and support to over 105 child care, after school, and day camp programs throughout Silicon Valley. Mary is passionate about education and uses innovative YMCA programming to help close the achievement/opportunity gap through after school and summer programs. She builds collaborative relationships with school districts to create out-of-school time education and enrichment programs, manages federal grants in health, nutrition, food security and afterschool, develops staff resources and materials, writes foundation grants, and supervises the youth development department. Mary is active at the state and national level in achievement gap work, afterschool and summer food policy and speaks at national conferences on these topics. Mary has been a child development college instructor for 13 years and is passionate about working with students in the child and youth development fields.