Safety Regulations

Purpose: The purpose of ASTEAM Afterschool Program is to provide a quality program that promotes education, social and emotional health and wellness in a nurturing, safe environment where your children can grow and have fun after school. During each day children will fill their afternoon with fun experiments, performing arts, gym time or outdoor play, mealtime, homework time, and group activities.

Ages: The ages of the children are 7 years to 18 years if still a high school student

Special Needs: The services for special needs children is in compliance with the American Disabilities Act. We will do our best to accommodate any child with a special need. However, we reserve the right to deny services based on the inability of ASTEAM Afterschool to ensure safety and good health due to a child’s special physical, mental, behavioral, or emotional conditions and the limited resources available within our program.

Hours: The hours of operation are 3:30 PM - 6:30 PM Monday through Friday on days that school is in session.

Weather: Should we encounter severe weather we will remain inside. We will bring children inside immediately should the weather include threatening storms.

Acceptance in program: Please fill out registration form on this ASTEAM website. Please read handbook and indicate that you have done so by checking appropriate box. Please read Policies and Procedures and indicate that you have done so.

Fees: Fees are $40.00 per month for one child and $20.00 per month for the second child in a family.

Supervision: We are always with the children. We do a count of children at the beginning of the afternoon and match it to the number of children signed in. We do a count any time we move locations. A child must ask permission to use the rest room and a staff person holds the bathroom passes. When the pass is returned we know the child is back. Staff is with children at all times.

Behavior Policy: ASTEAM Afterschool Program is committed to creating a successful environment for your children. Our procedures on positive instruction, supporting positive behaviors, discipline and consequences is the following: ASTEAM believes in respect for each other. We will only speak to your child with respect when we need to provide discipline. Should there be a problem, your child will be given two verbal warnings to correct a behavior. There will also be a quiet time of reflection to review the incident. We will work hard with you and your child to ensure their success, but respect and kindness is imperative. Should we be experiencing any significant behavior problems you will be notified. If the problem is one that endangers the welfare of the other students and continues to be ongoing, your child may no longer be welcome to attend and the parent will be notified by phone and given 24 hour notice.  To work together to prevent that we have implemented the following:  A. Your ASTEAM staff has been trained in positive teaching practices and we will engage family support and our partnering professionals if needed in open communication with family throughout to ensure children are being guided in a positive direction.  B. Our Staff is all trained to respect your children and treat each other as we all want to be treated C. ASTEAM Directors and teachers are trained to teach proper friendship building, team building and being kind to each other. Each teacher respects your child and will demonstrate always, how to treat children and each other. D. We will work as a team with you to develop a behavior plan for your child if they are struggling. You will be our greatest resource in providing the support we need for your child to be successful. Should the need ever arise, that your family needs more support for your child,  through our continuous trainings, we can offer family mental health contacts for you, to support your child in all environments.

Accidents/Illness / Emergency: When a child becomes ill or is injured during the after school program, the parent/guardian will be contacted immediately. If the parent cannot be reached our staff will adhere to the emergency contact information on your child's registration form. Please notify us immediately if changes occur in addresses, phone numbers or emergency contacts for your family. Should we not be able to reach anyone, we will call 911 for transport to needed medical facilities.

Lost Children: Should a child be missing at afterschool , we will obtain information from their local school office, parent or emergency contact, patrol the grounds and confirm that parent has received their child and failed to notify us. If we are unable to locate anyone or any information, we will then call 911. We adhere to strict adult to student rations when taking field trips. However, we also encourage parent attendance to help us keep your child safe. We also adhere to the same regulations that we provide for our children while on any field trips so that we can keep account of each child. No child will be permitted to leave their assigned adult at anytime during field trips. Please reap the parent handbook for complete details on our outside activity procedures.

Transportation: We encourage parents to transport their children, However transportation can be provided but must be requested upon registration. Afterschool will take no Field Trips during a school night week.

Travel Rules: All Children will ride in seats with seat belts and be transported by a staff member of ASTEAM afterschool. Should there be an emergency of some kind, the center will be notified in addition to proper authorities and parents, depending upon the nature of the emergency . The children's files will travel with us.

Releasing a child: When a child is released, the authorized person must sign the child out on our sign out sheet. No one will be released to anyone that is not on the registration form unless you notify us to do so. If you want your child to sign themselves out for any reason, we must have a signed letter from you, stating they are permitted to leave of their own accord.  Children may sign themselves out with parent permission on file.

Late arrivals: ASTEAM Afterschool closes at 6;30 PM. If you will be later than 6:30 PM please call center number and notify staff. We will wait with your child until you arrive. Should you run late regularly, an extra fee will be incurred. Should there be an emergency and we not hear from you for 15 minutes past our closing time, we will contact others on your emergency call list to come and retrieve your child.

Medications: We administer life sustaining medications only. It is recommended that children needing medication should receive it from the school nurse prior to the end of the school day or from their parents after pick up. If your child needs a life sustaining medication (ex. Epi-Pen, Seizure medicines ect.) we must have them stored for the school year with our program. The physician's prescription must also be on file with instructions to administer, signed by the parent or legal guardian.  We have paperwork available at our program center, or we can email documents to you to sign.

Personal belongings: All children's belongings will be placed in a locker assigned to them while at ASTEAM.

Meals: We serve a meal from 5:00 - 5:30 daily. We distribute snacks (usually fruit) at the beginning of each afternoon knowing that most children have not eaten since their school lunch meal. If your child has a food allergy please discuss with us what is apporpriate food for them, or provide their own meals.

Visitors: Visitors are to sign in at the front desk and notify a staff person that you are there.

Complaints: Should you have a complaint against our center, please talk to anyone on staff and they will direct you to the Director. We always want to know if a parent is dissatisfied so we can remedy the situation for you. If it is not resolved to your satisfaction, to register a formal complaint contact; Greater Hope Restoration Ministries, 1700 Bower Hill Road, Pittsburgh, Pa. 15243 Phone 804-955-2111.

Child Abuse: To report child abuse Call the Child Welfare Hot-line at 970-328-8804.

Canceling our Services: Should we or the school decide that we are no longer able to provide services, everyone will be given a 90 day notice. If your child has been asked to no longer attend our program due to poor behavior choices, please see #9 regarding behavior policies. We also reserve the right to refuse to do business with any family that is rude to our staff or our directors and who repeatedly is late to pick up their child. We will do all we can to accommodate everyone’s needs, but we will stop doing so when it affects others in our program or on our staff. We will also give you a 24 hour notice.

Occasionally, we will show a children's movie at our program.  All movies will be rated G.

We will supervise your child applying sunscreen to themselves prior to going outside each day.  If you do not want your child using our sunscreen either provide yours for them, or provide us a note in writing indicating you do not want us applying sunscreen to your child.

Questions: Any or all questions may be directed to the above number or our corporate offices at 802-955-2111