Engaging Youth, Serving Communities Jeff Buckley, Extension 4-H Specialist, Georgia

Jenny Jordan, Extension 4-H Specialist, Georgia jbuckley@uga.edu jwj4h@uga.edu

Program History

Engaging Youth, Serving Community began with

a grassroots effort to recognize the 4-H

Centennial in 2002. As a result, the National

Conversation on Positive Youth Development in

the 21st Century brought together youth and

adults in local communities, at the state level,

and finally in Washington, D.C. to discuss how to

develop a positive future for youth in America’s

communities. Forty-two Georgia youth and adult

joined in the conversation.

From Conversations, national goals were

established to empower rural communities to

involve youth as partners in decision making and

governance. In Georgia, the Youth Summit was

working towards similar goals.

In 2011, Georgia joined 15 land grants in working

together to impart youth with the life skills and

experience they need to emerge as effective

leaders and contributing members of society.

Another objective is to improve the ability of

youth and adults to collaborate with

community members to identify local

issues and develop strategies for

addressing them. The end result is that

Youth and adults have a more positive

attitude toward the role of youth in

communities.

Accomplishments, Impact &

Results

• Georgia team provides 8 hours of training for

county groups and awards $2500 in grant

funding for projects; program is extended for a

second year through National 4-H Council grant.

• Lumpkin County is added to the county teams

and creates a collaboration with high school

teacher

• Kings Bay collaborates with the navy base to

raise awareness, connections and collaboration

between on base and off base residents.

• Chattooga County beautifies downtown and sees

and increase in tourism

• Morgan County completes the DFACS room

renovation and moves to health education

projects to raise awareness of safe behaviors

• Taylor County is creating awareness for healthy

choices through use of technology. Teen created

messages for teens are part of the solutions.

• Teams have retained at least 50% of their

original team members and all have recruited

additional planning team members.

• Teams have completed community forums and

shared the success and challenges of the forum

with a statewide listening session of EYSC

counties

• Instructional techniques and activities for youth

adult partnerships, team building and forum

success have been expanded from original

curriculum

Program Attributes & Goals

• Teams of youth and adults in rural

communities collaborate to make a difference

• County teams host a community forum to

identify needs or solutions.

• Teams expand to include other stakeholders

and leverage support for project.

• State youth adult teams support counties

• Evaluation of learning, project and process

as important as results

• Curriculum provided for planning teams and

support systems in place online and in training

throughout the process