Providing Health and Physical Education to At-Risk Children and Teens - Active Plus [Podcast Series]
[:54] Dr. Bantham introduces her guest, Tarik Kitson
Tarik Kitson is the Founder and Executive Director of Active Plus.
[1:17] Active Plus mission and vision
“You know, I was not aware that there were schools in the public school systems in New York City that didn't have access to physical fitness and fitness after school programs. And so we decided to turn it into a nonprofit, after learning of these issues within the Harlem community.”
[2:55] Fitness, nutrition, mindfulness, leadership programming
“[W]e believe that you can't have one without the other. We can't preach to kids the importance of being active without discussing with them nutrition, cooking, the food that they put in their body as well as mindfulness, mental health, and knowing how to deal with stress.”
[5:15] Train-the-trainer model
“We love it, you know those are some of our best workers, are the students who have went through the program. And it's a, it's an amazing model that I'm glad that we started, I’m happy that we started.”
[6:17] COVID-19 pandemic impact on programming
“But I also know that a lot of these principals are understanding more of how important it is, right? Because we kind of saw that through the pandemic, of how they've been neglecting these programs in their schools, with the mindfulness, with the nutrition, with the fitness, of how important it is because kids have been at home for such a long time. And they're so reliant on their phones and games, and students having no interest of being physically active. And so we've seen a tremendous change in attitudes of the schools in regards to putting more resources towards phys ed programs and health programs.”
[8:51] Emergency response work
“I'm just proud that we're in a position where we can help our community and be able to get people such as yourself and a lot of our other supporters to come and to assist and to help and to be hands on with these students to make their life as best as possible with the limited resources that they do have.”
[11:40] Meeting students where they are
“And that's one big thing that we learned from the pandemic is how to meet these students where they're at. I feel like sometimes adults try to force things upon kids. But I think as we learn with technology, we have to, we have to catch up with the students. And I think a lot of these public schools have failed, they’ve failed to reach these students…”
[14:37] Helping kids live healthy lifestyles
“But how about those other kids who don't really care about being an athlete, but they have the right to know what it means to live a healthy lifestyle. You don't have to be a basketball player or a soccer player to be active. We want to be able to show them the foundation and the importance of working out, of walking or running, how to do a proper push-up, how to run properly. You don't have to be the next athlete, but this is why you're doing this. I feel like a lot of time kids think, okay, like, I'm running or I'm doing this just to be a basketball player not even thinking that, this is important for you to just live a longer life, live a productive life, live a healthy life.”
[17:59] Access to a variety of programming
“Yeah, no, no definitely, and one thing that really gets on my nerves, especially within the Black community in New York City. Even the schools, the schools in the Black community. They have like two sports, football and basketball. Maybe some of the Latino schools, baseball and soccer. And this is public schools. But when you go to the public school, the Upper East Side, where the parents are a little bit more, have more resources, you have a variety of different activities. You have gym, you have, you have fencing, you have ice skating. And so it's just, it's awful, it's not even fair.”
[20:13] Working with community partners
“But that's the way to do it. When you're in a nonprofit, you can't do it all yourself. You have to be able to really tap into the community and get assistance. And like I said, I'm just fortunate to be in a position that we're in, there's a lot of people out here that want to help. You just kind of have to put yourself out there. You have to be comfortable with sharing resources.”
[22:59] Measuring success
“So that's really how you can set yourself apart from other organizations is really spending some time of how you're going to evaluate and measure the success of your program. I'm so happy that you mentioned that because sometimes, especially younger organizations, they don’t get that, they don't understand that. But it's like, you have to.”
[25:09] Scaling through technology
“One thing that I did learn from this pandemic is how you can scale your organization through technology, and how you can get a reach—more families, more parents, more principals. And how it can just be a lot more affordable, like, yes, we're going to be in person, but when you're in person, you can't be everywhere at once, and it can be a lot.”
