Advocacy update: school is back in session: complementing school efforts can engage kids in healthy lifestyle choices.

The beginning of the school year offers a time for park and recreation professionals to initiate new relationships, re-examine existing practices and to rededicate themselves to new endeavors. As schools reconvene across the country, park and recreation agencies can use this time to look at how they partner with their local schools, strengthen those partnerships and play a leadership role in engaging communities to help kids create and develop healthy lifestyles.

Park and recreation departments have unique opportunities to advance healthy student lifestyles in after-school settings and on students' routes to school. In America today, one in four children (14.3 million) are alone and unsupervised after school. After-school programs offer an array of organized physical activities such as softball, martial arts or ballet. Most programs also serve healthy snacks and emphasize the value of a nutritious diet. Physical fitness activities after school not only promote health but also serve as crime deterrents, teach youth positive values, and impart knowledge and skills to help youth establish lifelong healthy habits.

Public park and recreation agencies aren't the only entities to recognize the vital role that after-school programming can play in improving a child's well-being--the public health community also emphasizes this essential component of public benefits. In a report to the President in 2000, "Promoting Better Health for Young People Through Physical Activity and Sports," the Secretary of Health and Human Services and the Secretary of Education identified after-school programs as a means to provide opportunities for youth to be physically active, and called for support to enable after-school programs to help in this cause.

Furthermore, the 2001 Surgeon General's "Call to Action to Prevent and Decrease Overweight and Obesity" recommended that schools take action to provide opportunities for extracurricular physical activity such as intramural sports and physical activity clubs.

Finally, the American Academy of Pediatrics' Committees on Sports Medicine and Fitness and School Health recommend that schools provide extracurricular and out of the classroom physical activity programs that are inclusive of all students.

The physical activity and health promotion activities that take place during after-school hours can be as varied as the programs that provide them. Activities can take place in a traditional afterschool setting and can be integrated into a traditional homework and tutoring format, or they can be part of a broader approach in which classroom learning and after-school activities are part of a coordinated approach to address specific health concerns.

Park and recreation departments around the country offer afterschool programs focused on developing specific physical and/or mental skill sets, exposing youth to varied cultural activities or even providing academic enrichment opportunities.

Park and recreation departments should celebrate and advertise the afterschool programs they offer to the community. One way to do this is by joining local partners on Oct. 12 for Lights On Afterschool Day. Lights On Afterschool is a project of the Afterschool Alliance, a non-profit organization dedicated to ensuring that all children have access to high quality and affordable after-school programs by 2010.

The event is celebrated nationwide to call attention to after-school programs for America's children, families and communities. Lights On Afterschool was launched in October 2000 with more than 1,200 communities participating nationwide. The event grew in 2001 to more than 3,600 events and more than 7,500 in 2005. This year, the Afterschool Alliance predicts that 1 million Americans will join.

An event that celebrates after-school programming could open the door to future collaborations with other community after-school providers. Lights on Afterschool could also help initiate a dialogue between schools and park and recreation departments to identify the gaps in services and the joint need to identify potential funding streams to support these programs.

In addition to Lights on Afterschool, park and recreation agencies can celebrate the vital role that they play in the safe routes to school movement by organizing community partners to celebrate International Walk to School Day on Oct. 4.

Thousands of acres of land surrounding public schools in America are managed and maintained by local park and recreation departments. By improving the structure of the paths that lead to schools, expanding the trails that connect to schools and establishing new connection points between schools and the surrounding residential areas, park and recreation departments can play an enormous role in helping kids travel to school with ease. Park and recreation efforts, in addition to the Federal Highway Administration's Safe Routes to School Program, are improving the path students can take to school. As routes become easier to traverse and perceived safety issues are addressed, the more kids will walk to school and the more likely that the parents will encourage them to do so.

The purpose of International Walk to School Day is to remind parents and children of the simple joy of walking to school. It also serves as an opportunity to focus on the importance of physical activity, safety, air quality and walkable communities. This event could serve as a catalyst to increase safe walking and bicycling and to further build school and park and recreation partnerships that can allocate resources and identify local, state and federal funding mechanisms.

ACTION ALERT

Celebrate after-school programming by hosting a local event on Oct. 12 as part of the 7th annual Lights On Afterschool initiative. For more information and assistance in planning such an event, see www. afterschoolalliance.org/lights_on/index. cfm.

Find information on International Walk to School Day at: www.walktoschool. org/iwalkusa.cfm

The CDC also has a Kids Walk to School program: www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/ kidswalk

The U.S. Department of Transportation provides tips on getting a walking program started at: www.saferoutesinfo. org/getting_started.cfm.

Reach out to your Safe Routes to school State coordinator: www.saferoutesinfo. org/contacts/index.cfm

Monica Hobbs Vinluan is the senior policy associate for NRPA's Public Policy division and can be contacted at [e-mail].