Introduction

Triple Play

In order to enable all young people, especially those who need usmost, 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.

Daily Challenges

Daily Challenges is a progressive curriculum that focuses on building movement skills and positive attitudes toward physical activity. The program consists of 32 diverse games, cooperative activities and sports that develop a young person’s ability, confidence and motivation to be physically active.

The Sports and Recreation Core Program Area

Triple Play is part of 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. Opportunities to learn and practice social-emotional skills are embedded in every session of all three Triple Play programs.

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 healthier lifestyles with the following practices:

• Primarily use small-sided games (A small number of players on each side makes it more likely that all will get to participate.)
• Ensure all members get quality playing time in every game
• Use progressive instruction by introducing concepts or rules one at a time to youth
• Check in during tasks and games to ensure youth feel comfortable with the current difficulty level, and adjust the difficulty accordingly
• Provide opportunities for members to self-assess their performance
• Do not use elimination games, or use them sparingly
• Group youth to form even teams, and change and re-form teams frequently
• Ask open-ended, relevant and challenging questions about health decisions
• Provide recognition when youth make choices that support their own health and/or the health of others
• Share personal health challenges and model appropriate and safe ways to address personal difficulties

Positive Youth Development Supports Character and Social-Emotional Development

All Boys & Girls Club programs offer opportunities for youth development professionals 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 Daily Challenges can model good character in the way 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 embedded in Daily Challenges. 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, see “Practicing Social-Emotional Skills to Achieve Character Development” in the BLUEprint at BGCA.net/ProgramBasics. It will show you the specific social-emotional skills young people should practice to demonstrate positive behaviors indicative of the six essential character traits.

Practice Positive Youth Development to Create Inclusive Clubs

Inclusion is a core component to build a safe, positive environment in your Clubs. 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 our Club, we improve the overall experience for all young people. When youth development professionals 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 Daily Challenges, consider strategies that help youth feel affirmed, safe and engaged with Club experiences. For more information on building and sustaining an inclusive environment, download the Program Basics BLUEprint at BGCA.net/ProgramBasics.

How to Use This Resource

Daily Challenges is carefully designed to provide key support for your Club’s physical activity program. The program is organized into 32 sessions that guide members of all ages through all movement skills in a developmentally appropriate way. Sessions are split into units of related skills and activities. Program activities are designed sequentially. You will have the most success if you implement the program following the recommended order of sessions. Many modification options are provided for each activity, so sessions can be repeated frequently to introduce new participants to the program or reinforce previously learned skills.

 Another reason to modify activities is to ensure every member has fun and feels successful. Continually adjust rules, equipment and team size to allow all youth to experience success in an activity. Modifying activities in this way also ensures that those with disabilities are able to fully participate.

You may also need to modify activities based on the amount of space or equipment you have available. While it may be ideal to run each session exactly as written, when it’s all said and done, the goal is to have a good time. Creativity and fun should remain at the forefront of everything you do in any Triple Play program.

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

Daily Challenges 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.