Youth Development Insight

By Anna Rose "What is your favorite way to be creative?" That was the question I posed to the youth who attended our art day camp earlier this summer. The answers were as unique as each kid in the room; one youth member shared that their favorite way to express themselves was by eating food—specifically their mom’s cooking, and Cocoa Puffs. While that was not the answer I was expecting, I did appreciate this youth member’s out-of-the-box thinking. It was creative and authentic. Creativity and art are essential to positive youth development. There are many benefits of art education :  Art encourages youth self-expression in such a way that words are not required, welcoming youth of all abilities.  Creating and consuming art allows youth to create connections with their peers and relate to their communities in introspective ways. While creating art, youth explore the creative process; they can learn how to problem solve while expressing their individual identity.  4-H Port...

By Rebecca Meyer This winter is proving to be a classic - lots of snow, ice, and lately slush. Now some may not be enjoying the onslaught of snow received in many communities, but most of Minnesota looks like a winter wonderland. This winter wonderland presents an excellent opportunity to engage in the outdoors , especially through learning experiences in our youth programs. Winter can truly be one of the most magical seasons for learning outdoors. And the outdoors, in my opinion, is one of the greatest learning environments, especially in winter as we may experience an otherworldly environment. Winter blankets the Earth and opens up a different type of experience than summer. There are wonderful opportunities for outdoor science and other types of learning in the winter. It becomes a deeply sensory experience: observation of animal signs marked in the snow, whether it be sets of tracks, scat or a bedding place for overnight; listening to birds or wind moving through tree branches or, ...

By Nicole Kudrle Each year I have the opportunity to work with some amazing teen leaders through the Minnesota 4-H county ambassador program . Ambassadors use their skills in leadership, communication and teamwork to create opportunities to make meaningful contributions to their communities and act as role models for younger 4-H youth.  Three years ago, I had 24 youth participate in the north St. Louis County 4-H county ambassador program. Each year the ambassadors have sponsored a Project Fun Day to promote 4-H in the county.  In 2019, the group decided to organize a new event called 4-H Winter Outdoor Survival Skills . In February of 2019, the group planned and promoted their event. The ambassadors worked closely with adult volunteers who provided knowledge and leadership to the sessions as the ambassadors recognized they were not content experts in the topics they planned to offer. The group planned sessions on shelter building, ice fishing, snaring and trapping, and stayi...

By Jennifer Cable “The test results have confirmed that your son does indeed have Down Syndrome.” Four days after the birth of my son Theo, these were the words I heard over the phone as my head filled with a million questions. What does this mean? What exactly is Down Syndrome? Am I equipped to be his mom? How does my husband feel right now? How does this impact our family? Will Theo need additional support as he grows? Will this diagnosis affect his development? Will he feel valued? While the only response I could articulate in that moment was “okay” and a muttered “thank you for letting me know,” I knew one thing was certain—I love Theo, as a human and as an individual. As my baby. No matter what.  Recently returning to work, I find myself merging my two worlds together to figure out how I can best advocate and support both my son and the young people in 4-H who may have a disability, whether disclosed or not, visible or not. 4-H Youth Development has communicated its goal ...

By Samantha Grant It is critically important for youth workers to use data in their decision making. Too often we listen exclusively to the voices of a handful of vocal members rather than looking deeper into our data. Understanding and using data allows us to inform our program planning, identify our strengths, and learn about outreach.  Data can feel overwhelming, so here are a couple of ideas to get you started on your data sense-making journey.   Data can help you understand your community Use data to learn about your community. Are there youth in your community who aren’t served by your program? Chances are the answer is yes. Learn more about your community by visiting data rich sites. My two favorites are by Minnesota Compass and Kids Count . The Minnesota Compass Build Your Own Profile tool allows you to draw the geographic boundaries of your search, which can be helpful for neighborhood or multi-county projects. Also learn about trends for school aged children ...

What makes a virtual youth program accessible to people with disabilities? Many of us are good at making physical spaces accessible, but many forget, or don't know, that virtual programs also take special considerations to ensure they are accessible to all. When planning virtual programs, we must keep those with disabilities at the front of our minds. Having a truly accessible virtual program takes some thought at every stage of planning. What is accessible? According to the ADA Compliance for Online Course Design , accessible means that a learning opportunity is equally available, enjoyable and of the same quality for those with a disability as for those without a disability, without special accomodation.  3 time frames Accessibility isn't "one and done." For youth program planning, there are three important time frames : ·        Planning . Share with participants beforehand how you will make the program accessible to them. It makes ...

By Samantha Grant Youth work, like all other fields, has been flipped on its head this year. Many youth workers are facing a reality in which their own children constantly surround them. Morphing from youth worker into classroom teacher, screen time warden and maker of chore charts. I am right there with many of you - working from home and trying to manage home schooling for three children of my own. Social media, blogs and online articles tell me about fun and creative tasks I can use to stimulate them, but they overwhelmed me. I may or may not have sobbed in my closet with a bag of chocolate chips until I realized that I do not have to do it all myself. I am not one to create Pinterest-worthy projects, but I can help you to build and evaluate strong programs. If you, like me, lack craftiness, I encourage you to pause, then get back to planning new, exciting youth programs. Intentional programs need intentional planning. Here are four ideas that can help you jump-start some g...

By Margo Bowerman Let’s be honest – program planning is hard work. Program planning tools help, but they can be downright overwhelming to use! There are as many ways to do program planning as there are programs. In Cooperative Extension organizations around the country, the logic model is a well used and vetted system. The University of Wisconsin has excellent resources for how to use logic models in program planning. Public health organizations offer some excellent models – the Centers for Disease Control and the Rand Corporation have some great resources. And all these models vary in the number of steps they include and how they are described.

By Amber Shanahan You may cringe when you think about negotiating, but I’m here to tell you that negotiation does not have to inherently apply to conflict or uncomfortable conversations. Negotiation is a powerful tool that can be used to ensure you’re utilizing all of your constituent’s assets to their full potential to best support the youth you serve. As a youth worker, you are one player on a field consisting of families, funders, policy makers, research experts and of course, youth. The goal of this team is to provide the most effective and appropriate services to your youth members, and each player provides differing levels of expertise and expectations. To navigate this sea of stakeholder expectations, youth work requires planning and negotiation. Negotiation is an interpersonal decision-making process necessary whenever we cannot achieve our objectives single handedly. Negotiation must happen in board meetings, with committees, with youth groups and with colleagues. ...

By Pamela Larson Nippolt Just when you thought that your youth program was doing well to DO evaluation at all, we evaluators want you to USE it, too! What does it take to make the report, and the entire evaluation process, an integral part of a youth organizations' everyday work? I've learned that building capacity to use evaluation does not depend on having a lot of fancy bells and whistles. My experiences in the reporting stage of evaluation work with youth-serving organizations have taught me that successful use of evaluation has little to do with slick reports and branded slide presentations. It is more about the right people coming together to roll up their sleeves around the findings and lessons. Others in the evaluation field have done some thinking about this and are sharing their experiences on evaluation use. Boris Volkov and Jean King provide a capacity-building checklist for those planning evaluations. Their checklist suggests that one of the first places t...