How do you define “youth-adult partnership”? It’s only two words after all, since the accepted rule is that compound words count as one. Still, the space represented by the hyphen, in many ways, is the most difficult part. “What does it mean?” we asked at the Adult 4-H Volunteer Annual Training. To you? To Rock County? To 4-H and its role in Positive Youth Development? Most importantly, how can we as individuals and as a program create and maintain the connection between youth and adults represented by that hyphen?
Adult 4-H Volunteer Annual Training began the conversation around those questions. In order to build experiences in common and describe learning goals and needs, we found success during the October session to begin not as the adults we are, but through reflection on our own development as youth. You may find it useful to do the same.
What does youth-adult partnership mean to you? Take a moment to consider the following: Think of someone in your life (teacher, mentor, related to you or not) who supported you to develop a new knowledge or skill.
What does youth-adult partnership mean to Rock County? During the August Executive Committee Meeting, youth and volunteers started that conversation as well by conducting a SWOT analysis of our 4-H program. Participants at the Annual Leader Training connected the characteristics of the adults in their pasts with the strengths of our current 4-H program listed on the August evaluation. Can you?
Compare your connections to some examples from the training participants: communication skills, demonstrations/hands on learning, comfort talking or working with both peers and adults, opportunity, and risk taking.
Can you also draw a line between the strengths of the current Rock County 4-H program and Positive Youth Development through the Essential Elements? If you want to test yourself, check out the course available through 4-H online https://4h.extension.wisc.edu/files/2018/08/4HOnline-Essential-Elements-Training-For-4H-Volunteers.pdf
While initial participant reflections were helpful, final conversations that exemplified the wealth of knowledge and strategies around youth-adult partnership available to each of us through the network of volunteers were the most impressive. All participants needed, seated comfortably in those UW-Whitewater at Rock County lectures chairs, to access youth-adult partnership tools was to follow the dotted lines, or hyphens, that currently linked youth and adult in collaboration at each club meeting, activity and yet to be imagined idea. The strategies shared by participants aligned with descriptions used in the Youth-Adult Partnership Rubric found in UW-Madison, Division of Extension training tools https://cerc.msu.edu/yaprubric/.
I encourage you to explore further again through your own experiences as a learner. Take a moment to consider the following:
Think of an opportunity you had to take on a new role or try something new. Why did you decide to accept/not accept?
Can you use the rubric to describe your own experience? Based on your experiences, can you select an aspect from the rubric to use to set a goal as a volunteer for the upcoming year? Based on the conversations during the training, Rock County’s path towards youth-adult partnership lists the following goals and the number of participants that selected each:
Authentic Decision-making—Youth are involved in meaningful decision-making: 12
Natural Mentors—Adults intentionally support relationships with youth to help them develop: 9
Reciprocity—Youth and adults work together as partners: 7
Community Connectedness—Youth are engaged in communities: 4
As facilitators of the Adult 4-H Volunteer Annual Training, we would like to express our thanks for the sincere participation and critical thinking problem solving of each participant who attended the training. If you have further interest in youth-adult partnership educational content sessions for your 4-H club or community organization, we are excited to work with you further.
Moreover, these goals are not unique to Rock County 4-H’s experience as a youth program, but youth programs in general across Rock County. From May to September 2019, Erin conducted face to face interviews with over 45 organizations, some represented by individuals and others teams of two or three, in order to assess the current state of youth success and Rock County’s effort to support this success through community and individual investment in the form of youth/family services and programming in Rock County. Special interest was paid to the adult/organizational perception of positive youth development, specifically youth-adult partnership.
The data collected from the community asset interviews provides a synthesis of where individuals and organizations are thinking similarly and where they diverge. Some common themes are: 1) Rock County has a diverse range of programming, 2) Community stakeholders believe that youth success includes positive adult relationships and engagement through well-defined, authentic roles, 3) Stakeholders expressed concern regarding the amount of youth voice that informed current programming and the need for the formalization of youth roles to gather youth voice so that programming would be more easily adapted to the quick changes in youth needs/wants, 4) There is a disconnect between attitudes and practice around youth-adult partnership. Current curriculum/practices are not intentional enough to bridge youth opportunities that result in empowerment in the greater community, and 5) Current goals for youth success remain ambiguous to a great extent which makes measurement and evaluation difficult. In summary, we have much in common to work on together, and if you are struggling with one of these four youth-adult partnership dimensions, someone else nearby is too.
RESOURCES
University of Minnesota hosts a blog that never disappoints when it comes to insights on Youth Development. So many of the conversations I continue to listen to in youth programming center around the topic of identity. I invite you to read a post I found interesting, “Who am I? The two important ingredients for identity formation” at https://blog-youth-development-insight.extension.umn.edu/2019/07/who-am-i-two-important-ingredients-for.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+umn%2FAolS+%28Youth+Development+Insight%2
UW-Extension’s public media services – Wisconsin Public Radio (WPR) and Wisconsin Public Television (WPT) are UW-Extension’s public media services. I was reminded of their quality and diversity while attending the Wisconsin Library Association Conference in October. “Learning by Curiosity speaks to the Positive Youth Development “spark”. Explore more here https://wpteducation.org/
On recent grant applications and in curriculum used by community organizations I notice more and more references to Positive Youth Development. The University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s website is another great landing page for professional development resources on this topic. It includes print material, webinars and program participant and leader guide. Try and compare them to your programming! https://4h.unl.edu/pyd
Previously, I shared resources from the Kindness Curriculum. It was my pleasure over the past two months to connect a great Rock County organization YES! (Youth Emotional Stability) with the Stay Safe Seminar for students taking place at Rock River Charter School. I encourage you to explore further Mindfulness resources through UW-Madison’s Center for Healthy Minds https://centerhealthyminds.org/. Sign up for their newsletter too!
