After School Programs
Empowering Lives, Shaping Futures: Our programs provide tailored support in a safe, social and enriching environment
Program Description
Ala Costa Center’s after-school programs are here to support school-aged children with Intellectual and developmental disabilities. Families count on Ala Costa Centers to provide services that give each child the necessary skills to thrive at home, in school, and to live as independently as possible.
After School Program
Ala Costa Center’s after-school programs are located at Berkeley and Alameda Sites. We focus on teaching important academic skills, offering enrichment activities, and guiding our participants to build the skills and confidence everyone needs for success in life.
Regular Program Hours: 2:00 PM - 6:00 PM
(Seasonal Long Days/ Minimum Days provided)
Curriculum and Activities
Being “OF” a Community is just as, if not more important that being “IN” a Community. Ala Costa students are encouraged to not only participate in the community but actively seek out meaningful partnerships and relationships with surrounding neighbors, businesses, vendors, and experiences.
A participant plays on the beach in Alameda on a field trip
Ala Costa students are introduced to a variety of creative programming to unlock their interests and promote expression in a number of mediums (i.e. art, music). All students have emerging or hidden talents and abilities, and this program provides an avenue to develop different means to express personal creativity through recreational interests.
A participant expresses himself with paint during an art class
When children have opportunities to develop executive function and self-regulation skills, they will experience lifelong benefits. Executive function and self-regulation skills depend on three types of brain function: working memory, mental flexibility, and self-control. These skills are crucial for learning and development. Ala Costa students actively engage in student centered and peer interaction activities with appropriate support to become active participants and decision makers in their program and lives.
Inquiry-based learning is a type of active learning that encourages students to ask questions, conduct research, make mistakes, and explore new ideas. This approach to learning helps Ala Costa students develop critical thinking, peer reflection, and problem solving skills in real time.
Ala Costa students are encouraged to participate and engage with their peers to improve social skills, participate in group dynamics, and make group based negotiation and decisions within their program every day. They are actively supported by staff through play, recreation, and leisure activities that promote interaction with one another versus a primary adult.
Participant show off their Halloween costumes!
Ala Costa students are provided real time opportunities, every day to develop Self-Advocacy skills. Self- Advocacy is an individual’s ability to effectively communicate, convey, negotiate or assert his or her own interests, desires, needs and rights. It involves making informed decisions and taking responsibility for those decisions. Self-advocacy gives students the confidence to ask for the tools they need to be successful in the real world, and to take ownership of their decisions by developing the ability to speak up for yourself and the things that are important to you.
Adaptive skills are defined as practical, everyday skills needed to function and meet the demands of one’s environment, including the skills necessary to effectively and independently take care of oneself and to interact with other people. Ala Costa students are provided support to grow student independence in all areas of life, from personal care needs, to activities of daily living, communication, and social interaction.
A participant having a blast on court playing basket ball
Photography by Jamie Meronk and Ala Costa Centers