Cheer! 5 years of the Afterschool Recognition Awards!

The submission deadline is September 4th, 2026. The Connecticut Network for Children and Youth is seeking nominations for the 5th Annual Recognition Awards. The nomination form is open! Do you know an individual or program who goes above and beyond for the youth in their community? We want to recognize them!  The Best of CT […]

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Celebrate Lights On Afterschool (and have some fun)!

This October marks the 26th year of the nationwide Lights On Afterschool celebration. Each year thousands of programs and tens of thousands of children take part in events, recognitions, and community engagement. In 2022, along with partners, we started an annual event to kick-off the month, to give programs time to plan and prepare for […]

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Ice Dye Color Theory

Back in February, Shawna shared a worksheet to help staff create activities based on their own interests, and as promised she’s back with her tie-dye inspired activity, Ice Dye Color Theory. Shawna found her love for tie-dye, especially using the ice dye technique, during the pandemic. We even hosted a team building where the network […]

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Teen Art Exhibition!

This month Shawna had the team help her demo a few Mizzen activities! They gathered to create a call for art for the fall conference using the Teens Curate Teens Collection. The collection is a series of 6 activities, empowering teens to curate their very own art exhibition. The activities begin with developing a theme […]

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Making Comics!

The Network surveyed the field recently, and found that you wanted more arts content, so Shawna’s answering the call with this month’s PD Bite. She explored the first two activities in the Making Comics! Mizzen collection. A collection with 7 different parts, making it an easy to implement curriculum.  The first activity, Making Comics Part […]

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The Network is Celebrating 35 Years!

The Network is celebrating 35 years of after school excellence…and more! In 1989, the Network was founded as the Connecticut School Age Child Care Alliance (CSACCA) at the first After School Conference. Since then, we changed names (2x), moved to several locations and employed over 20 people. In addition to our after school work, we […]

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SEL Training

Are you looking to fill your Social Emotional Learning bucket?

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Mizzen Summer Sizzle

We know that reconnecting with young people and reigniting a love of learning is on everyone’s mind. 

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Educator Opportunity: Practitioner Focus Group

Out-of-School Time Educator Summer Opportunity announcement from The Center for Science Teaching and Learning at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Arizona

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Virtual Summer Training – Week 4

Week 4 (June 21 – June 25): Connecting with Families and the Community

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