Family Programs
The YMCA of Greater Pittsburgh will create new programs that fit today’s families while expanding its traditional family programs.
Family programs strengthen the parent-child bond by enabling parents and children to participate in activities that foster social, recreational, educational and
cultural growth
The YMCA wants to become a community resource for families by providing childcare services that enable families to meet work-related obligations while ensuring a safe and caring environment for their children. Working within our communities, we will build cooperative, personal relationships with schools, principals, teachers, administrators and clergy. We will utilize schools, churches and community centers as vehicles for communication with local residents and collaboration on family-oriented projects. To make programs more attractive to our family audience, we ensure that they are affordable, convenient and sensitive to changing family structures and to the diversity, demographics and special needs of each branch’s service area. The YMCA, will ensure that programs remain accessible to everyone, regardless of ability to pay, through fee adjustments, free memberships and scholarships.
Health and Wellness
The YMCA of Greater Pittsburgh will be a leader in promoting the health and wellness of the community through YMCA and Activate Pittsburgh programs.
The YMCA has always advocated the holistic approach to wellness through care of the spirit, mind and body and it remains our goal to influence individuals who are not leading a healthy lifestyle to take health and wellness programs.
Activate Pittsburgh is part of a national initiative bringing together public and private partners to respond to the nation’s epidemic of chronic disease and obesity. The YMCA of Greater Pittsburgh is one of the fourteen YMCAs across the country that is participating in Activate America.Through Activate Pittsburgh, we are making programs that promote healthy lifestyles even more accessible to the people of our communities. Activate Pittsburgh programs focus on key demographic target areas
- Impoverished and Low Income Communities
- “At Risk” Youth and Teens (Obesity)
- Inactive (start/stop) Adults and Older Adults
- Employee Wellness Programs
Current and Upcoming Activate Pittsburgh Programs
- After-school Health and Wellness (After School with Activate Pittsburgh, A.S.A.P.)
- Active Teen Program
- Active Living Every Day (ALED)
- Various Corporate Health and Wellness Programs
Literacy
The YMCA of Greater Pittsburgh will actively promote literacy to children and adults in our community.
The YMCA is addressing our youth literacy by taking steps to ensure that all children participating in the after-school programs are reading at grade level by the third grade. The YMCA of Greater Pittsburgh created the Starfish Summer Literacy Program to help students who are entering the third grade and reading below grade level to increase, enrich, and maintain their literacy skills during the summer months. Starfish builds literacy skills in a camp-like atmosphere. All activities are designed to build self-confidence and demonstrate that reading is fun.
The YMCA is working to form partnerships with organizations that have literacy training as their core mission. Through such partnerships, we hope to provide literacy programs in all branches, providing information and resources to help parents foster reading skills in their children.
The YMCA’s literacy programs encompass both traditional reading skills and computer literacy:
- Starfish Literacy Program
- Tutoring
- After school homework assistance
- The Y-Tech program
Community Outreach
The YMCA of Greater Pittsburgh will develop and implement programs to meet the needs of underserved communities.
All communities have needs. Job loss, illness, divorce, substance abuse, child abuse and neglect, aging parents, and seniors who have lost spouses are real problems that individuals in every community faces. The YMCA of Greater Pittsburgh will continue to be a leader in community outreach by offering services tailored to the community. Whether by scholarships for children and adults whose families cannot afford to pay, food bank services, special programs to help single parents or substance abuse counseling, or a myriad of other social service programs, the YMCA will help meet the needs of our communities.
The Y will strive to provide innovative services through trained staff and volunteers and to engage other organizations as partners. By collaborating with local groups, the YMCA will advance our position as a place to which individuals feel confident turning for help.
YMCA Outreach includes a variety of programs for people of all ages in all areas of our Greater Pittsburgh community. The Collegiate YMCA offers one such program, CHANGES. CHANGES unites high school students from diverse backgrounds in an effort to promote citizenship. By linking schools and community based organizations in mutually beneficial service initiatives, CHANGES helps reduce prejudice and increase understanding among students. At the Homewood-Brushton YMCA, the Teens Against Tobacco Use (TATU) program provides youth with education and information regarding the risks of tobacco use. Teens participating became peer educators in the East End community, presenting to other teens and testing local merchants for underage tobacco sales. Annually, TATU serves approximately 500 young people.
Outreach also includes bringing YMCA programs into areas that aren’t near a YMCA branch. Currently, YMCA Health and Wellness centers and programs are serving over one dozen satellite sites and delivering healthy lifestyle programs to hundreds of individuals outside of our YMCA membership base.
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