Program managers play a critical role in the organization, operation, and success of child and youth programs. As a program leader, you are responsible for establishing the program vision, hiring and maintaining high-quality staff, developing staffing schedules, and evaluating the program for continuous quality improvement. In addition to the recently-added new Program Schedules lesson, the remainder of the lessons in the Program Management course in the Management track have been enhanced with updated content and new activities to support program managers in their management and leadership skills. For example, new content has been added to Lesson Two to support managers in conducting effective interviews with potential staff. Additionally, new information on strategies to conduct staff performance evaluations that are supportive of professional growth and program-wide improvements has also been added to this lesson. All activities in the course have been upgraded to an HTML format and several new activities have been added to support program managers as they reflect on key leadership practices. For example, a new activity, Assessing Interview Questions, has been included in the Apply section of Lesson Two to encourage managers to reflect on whether the current interview questions they use to recruit new staff align with best practices. A new Apply activity has also been added to Lesson 6, Continuous Quality Improvement Plan - Family Survey, to help program managers practice using data to create action plans to support program improvement.
