Youth Development Insight

By Karyn Santl I'm not an outdoors person. I don't like bugs. I don't like the heat. I'm not really into outdoors stuff. But I LOVE 4-H camp and the magic that happens when teens use their leadership skills to deliver the camp program! For more than 20 years, I have been coordinating an overnight 4-H camp for grades 3-6, as well as day camps. My goal for the campers is that they are safe, have fun, make new friends and want to come back the following year. What motivates me to coordinate camps? It's the magic that happens when teenagers become camp counselors!

By Samantha Grant Good data visualization matters. I think about, blog about  and train others on ways to improve the way that we share our evaluation findings. Recently, I had personal evidence of how good data visualization matters. My daughter came home from school upset because she scored "urgent intervention" on a standardized math test. I initially didn't believe her because she's a strong student, even though she would rather have her nose in a book than solve multiplication problems. We went through all of the reasons that her score could have been low-- from a bad test-taking day to the test covering topics that weren't discussed in class.

By Trisha Sheehan We've all heard that it's important to take care of ourselves. Often times we think of that from a personal perspective: We take care of our health. We take a vacation to relax and refresh ourselves. But do you take care of yourself professionally? Professional development is a chance to enhance the skills of newer staff or those who are more experienced. For a youth worker, professional development can be training, education or support.