By Savannah Aanerud What does it mean to thrive? The 4-H Thriving Model is the root system for how 4-H programs successfully grow and cultivate positive experiences into the lives of our young people. It helps youth develop a growth mindset where key developmental outcomes are achieved. Karen Beranek explores this in her blog about how one must move beyond resilience to thrive. However, in order to truly help youth, volunteers and families thrive, we need to first consider how we as program staff are thriving. I want to encourage you to sit back in your chair and ask yourself, "Am I thriving?". Many of us are in "survival" mode while trying to encourage our youth to "thrive". How does that work? We see ourselves taking on a plethora of tasks, adding to our already long to-do lists. Our work can then seem like a checklist that we have to do each day instead of something that we enjoy "getting" to do. We are constantly pouring into our programs...
Our youth development educators bridge research and practice. In this blog, they offer their views on what's happening in the field of youth development, with an eye to evidence-based research written by themselves and others in our field. We welcome your comments.