Triple Play

In order to enable all young people, especially those who need us most, to reach their full potential as productive, caring, responsible citizens, Boys & Girls Clubs focus on three priority outcome areas: Academic Success, Healthy Lifestyles, and Good Character and Citizenship.

Triple Play is a suite of three Targeted Programs that work together to promote Healthy Lifestyles. The three programs were intentionally written to build the skills, attitudes, knowledge and behaviors essential to an overall healthy lifestyle. Healthy eating, physical activity and relationship building are addressed in a suite of three easy-to-use resources. Each component is a complete curriculum; together, they help youth learn to sustain the health of the mind, body and soul.

Social Recreation

Social Recreation is a social-emotional learning curriculum that builds skills a young person needs to make healthy choices. The program consists of six thematic units with five sessions each; activities help young people develop healthy relationships with themselves and others, emotional regulation skills and responsible decision-making skills.

The Sports and Recreation Core Program Area

Programs in this area promote physical health by providing low-risk settings for members to explore moving their bodies and eating healthy foods. These playful experiences build movement and nutrition skills. Members develop positive attitudes toward physical activity and healthy eating to support a lifetime of healthy decisions. Targeted Programs and High-Yield Activities in the Sports and Recreation Core Program Area are linked to the Healthy Lifestyles priority outcome area.

Sports and Recreation Outcome Statement

Youth have the ability, confidence, and motivation to lead physically active lifestyles and adopt healthful eating patterns.

Social-emotional skills are essential for youth to build healthy relationships with themselves and others, recognize and manage emotions, and solve problems.

Triple Play was designed to promote:

The Youth Development Professional’s Role in Healthy Lifestyles

Positive youth development is an intentional approach that engages youth within their communities, schools, organizations, peer groups, and families in a manner that is productive and constructive; recognizes, uses and enhances young people’s strengths; and promotes positive outcomes for young people by providing opportunities, fostering positive relationships, and furnishing the support needed to build on their leadership strengths.

Sports and Recreation programs, when facilitated with high-quality youth development practice, help youth develop the skills, confidence, and motivation needed to maintain a healthy eating pattern and a physically active life.

Youth development professionals can help all youth live a healthier lifestyle with the following staff practices.

• During structured and unstructured Club time, staff intentionally integrate activities that explicitly build social-emotional skills.
• Staff facilitate and maintain Group Agreements at the start of any routine programmatic experience to establish a safe environment for sharing and learning.
• Staff provide the opportunity and space for youth and other staff to check in emotionally during the Club day; staff are able to recognize trends in emotions and modify programming as necessary.
• Staff allow youth opportunities to independently recognize and solve problems and decisions about health.
• Staff integrate trauma-informed approaches throughout the Club day, especially in health programs and activities.
• Staff provide ongoing assistance for youth to set ambitious yet realistic goals for their future in academics and health.
• Staff provide recognition when youth make choices that support their own health and/or the health of others.
• Staff share their personal challenges, and model appropriate and safe ways to address personal difficulties.

Positive Youth Development Supports Character and Social-Emotional Development

Boys & Girls Clubs programs offer opportunities for staff to model, recognize, reinforce and reflect on character development. Positive youth development provides direction for how you interact with, engage and model behavior for youth. You get to shape the lives of young people every day.

As a result, you set the expectations and show youth what essential character traits – caring, citizenship, fairness, respect, responsibility and trustworthiness – mean and how they look. These character traits come to life when youth practice social-emotional skills like teamwork, conflict management and emotional regulation.

Youth can start to build character using “caught and taught” approaches. Youth “catch” social-emotional skills when they observe youth development professionals modeling them, and when they interact with peers. Youth can also be “taught” skills to build good character when the skills are explicitly introduced and practiced through program sessions and activities. Use this formula to understand how character develops over time:

Staff Model Good Character + Youth Practice Skills Regularly = Character Development

Youth development professionals facilitating Social Recreation can model good character in the ways they support all youth, offer feedback rather than criticism, and encourage honesty and responsibility.

To build character traits, include many opportunities for youth to practice the social-emotional skills developed in Social Recreation. These include skills related to:

• How youth feel about themselves
• Their relationships with others
• Their ability to regulate emotions
• Their ability to solve problems

When Character Development is present:

• Youth development professionals model and youth practice skills that display respect, fairness, trustworthiness, responsibility, caring and citizenship.
• Youth successfully get along well with others.
• Youth are better able to control their emotions and solve problems.

When Character Development is absent:

• Youth do not feel a sense of belonging at the Club.
• Youth lack skills that foster positive peer relationships.
• Youth lack self-control and act out in frustration.

For more information, visit BGCA.net and search for "Program Basics BLUEprint." See “Practicing Social-Emotional Skills to Achieve Character Development” in the BLUEprint. It will show you the specific social-emotional skills young people should practice to demonstrate positive behaviors indicative of essential character traits.

Practice Positive Youth Development to Create Inclusive Clubs

Inclusion is a core component to build a safe, positive environment in your Club. In order to fulfill our mission, Clubs must create safe, positive and inclusive environments for all youth and teens – including every race, ethnicity, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, ability, socio-economic status and religion. By creating inclusive environments at the Club, we improve the overall experience for all young people. When staff use positive youth development practices, they help ensure all youth:

• Feel represented
• Have a sense of belonging
• Can meaningfully participate in programming

As you implement Social Recreation, consider strategies that help youth feel affirmed, safe and engaged with Club experiences. To view and download more information on building and sustaining an inclusive environment, visit BGCA.net and search for "Program Basics BLUEprint."

How to Use This Resource

This Targeted Program and facilitator’s guide is designed to provide a convenient, one-stop resource for running an effective Social Recreation program. It is informed by and builds on the excellent work Clubs already are doing to foster healthy lifestyles in youth. It provides guidance for leading each session, as well as expanding your facilitation and gamesroom management skills. And, though Social Recreation has traditionally taken place in the gamesroom, the activities in this facilitator’s guide can be used in nearly any space.

Social Recreation sessions are grouped by age range, then further organized into six thematic units addressing the development of one or more social-emotional skill. Each unit contains five lessons that are intended to build upon one another sequentially. You can choose the units themselves in any order you like. Ultimately, though, Social Recreation for ages 6-9 and 10-12 should be implemented in the manner which best addresses your members’ needs. For example, if youth are having trouble controlling impulses and managing stress caused by external circumstances, you might facilitate a lesson from “Impulse Control and Stress Management,” even if you’ve been working on a different unit. The lessons for 13- to 18-year-olds should be facilitated sequentially, as they provide teens with a framework to design and implement a Club service project. Facilitating these lessons out of order may result in confusion.

This guide is available on BGCA.net. Clubs can download complimentary copies of most national programs and resources.

Social Recreation Overview

Recommended Resources

BGCA offers a range of developmentally appropriate Sports and Recreation programs to serve youth of all age groups.

Other resources include Taking a Club-Wide Approach to Healthy Eating: A Resource Guide for Staff and Leadership. Find these titles using the search bar on BGCA.net.