Vision
Husky Sport’s vision is framed in Sport Based Youth Development (SBYD) with an emphasis on developing right, meaningful and strong relationships between Hartford North End youth, parents, and community leaders and UConn faculty, staff and students. Husky Sport has been a deliberate and intentional program seeking to spend more time to address the needs of one area in Hartford. Rather than expand to other neighborhoods, Husky Sport has added more programming that encompasses a larger number of children and families of the North End (Clay Arsenal, North East, Blue Hills, Upper Albany), along a greater age continuum (K–12) and in more aspects of a child’s life (i.e. in school, after school, and weekends).
The outcomes of Husky Sport’s vision should reveal progress toward the following outcomes:
- self esteem/self worth as the participants gained interest, knowledge and improved their physical abilities,
- accountability/responsibility for self as part of a small program with considerable individual attention,
- connections to community/sense of belonging through working closely with mentors and peers,
- knowledge/acquisition of nutrition/physical activity/life skills/academic skills from the curriculum,
- application of those skills both within program and at home, and
- active participation/recognizing one’s own influence on self/others through power-sharing
Find at www.up2us.org and additional citations: Bruening, Dover & Clark, 2009; Perkins & Noam, 2007; Pittman, et al., 2002; National Institute on Out-of-School Time at Wellesley College Center for Research on Women, Harvard Family Research Project After School Program Quality Assessment Categories of Standards, DC Standards for Out-of-School Time, The Community Network for Youth Development’s Youth Development Framework for Practice, Team Up For Youth’s Building Blocks for Quality Youth Sports.