Youth Development Insight

By Jeremy Freeman Effective volunteer recruitment is an intentional process that is backed by solid strategies and a clear plan. While there are certainly times when a desperate plea for immediate help can solicit a short-term solution, recruitment will occur best by following some simple steps. Consider these five steps to enhance your volunteer recruitment this season. 1. Appeal to the individual (skills and traits) Not every job can be filled by any person. Specific responsibilities require individual skills and traits to accomplish the work effectively. Identifying the individual skills and traits you are looking for allows you to hone your recruitment towards an individual's strengths and motivations. Does a role require someone who is a problem solver? What about someone who enjoys serving? By connecting roles to character traits we can more readily connect an opportunity to someone's personal motivation and sense of purpose. 2. Connect the role to the impact Helping the

By Jennifer Cable Youth programs are an effective way to support youths' aspirations and pathways to future opportunities in education and career. Aspirations are future-oriented and are “ indicative of an individual or group’s commitments towards a particular trajectory or end point .”  In one Minnesota 4-H program, implemented in partnership with the Moundsview School District Equity Team*, a group of nine youth engaged in a Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) project using the YPAR Stepping Stones framework. The purpose of their project was to capture how the pandemic has changed the ways families and young people think about school and family-school-youth partnerships, and consider what new opportunities have been created for such partnerships. Campus visits were integrated into their project experience, providing intentional opportunities for the youth participants to meet current college students and faculty, share their plans for the future and explore the Universit

By Sarah Odendahl In spring of 2008, I was a junior in high school struggling with the fallout from a recent breakup.  One day I walked into the band rehearsal room - a class I shared with my ex-boyfriend and about 50 other teens - feeling particularly upset. When I saw my ex walk in, suddenly it felt like all the oxygen left my body. I couldn’t catch my breath, the warm-up noises were overwhelming, and I didn’t know what to do. A good friend pulled me from the room and sat on the floor of the hallway with me until I could get a deep breath again. Looking back on it now, that breakup doesn’t elicit much emotional response, but to teenage Sarah it cut incredibly deep. I was coping the best I could, and learning social-emotional skills along the way, but I didn’t have the language to address what I later learned was the first of several panic attacks I would suffer that spring. In 2010, a study in the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry found that one in