Welcome to Developing Responsible Youth, one of the five statewide program
initiatives of the North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service. Although the
Initiative is managed through primary program resources made available through
the North Carolina 4-H Youth Development Program and the Department of 4-H Youth
Development in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at North Carolina
State University, it is designed to drive collaboration with and among all agencies,
programs and organizations dedicated to the well being of young people in our
state.
Our initiative is designed to actively engage youth, volunteers, stakeholders,
and youth development professionals “to create helping relationships to
enable youths to become responsible, productive citizens.” Through 4-H
and other, allied youth development programs young people are empowered to invest
and grow cognitive, social, physical and emotional skills to reach their full
potential for becoming coping, competent and contributing participants in their
friendship and peer groups, families, schools and communities.
The Initiative focuses on utilization of experiential, non-formal, community
based youth development practices which recognize the worth and dignity of every
individual, and believe that the development of life skills enables young people
to become caring, coping and competent citizens who will build strong foundations
for our future. In the spirit of this shared value, the initiative is committed
to the well being of and seeks to maintain the confidence of youth, volunteers,
stakeholders, the Extension System, and all youth development professionals.
The Initiative seeks to celebrate through action “The Power of Youth
in a Changing World”, the National 4-H Strategic Plan and its vision:
“A world in which youth and adults learn, grow, and work together as catalysts
for positive change;” and its mission: “4-H empowers youth to reach
their full potential working and learning in partnership with caring adults.”
We also embrace that plan’s belief that if we really care about youth,
if we really want them to succeed, we must reorganize around them by transforming
the relationships we have with youth in designing, delivering, and governing
4-H and other youth development programs to celebrate several critical dimensions
of program excellence: the power of youth; access, equity, and opportunity;
an extraordinary place to learn; exceptional people, innovative practices; and
effective organizational systems.
The Initiative strives to encourage both youth development program design and
content validity by encouraging youth development professionals to become actively
involved in three overlapping, continuing domains of professional best practice:
1) Scanning the environment for youth development needs, 2) designing and delivering
quality programs and 3) reporting and celebrating program impact. Major contemporary
youth development paradigms being utilized include: life skills, internal and
external assets, and resilience theory. These theoretically grounded paradigms
when used individually or concurrently offer youth development program staff
a full range of adaptation possibilities for assessing program impacts. Program
staffs are encouraged to adapt educational programs to local situations in the
context of the outcomes of the National 4-H Impact Assessment Project. That
project created a list of program characteristics most likely to engender positive
youth outcomes when incorporated into youth programming. Those critical program
characteristics are:
A positive relationship with a caring adult
A physically and emotionally safe environment
The opportunity to value and practice service for others
An opportunity for self-determination
An inclusive environment
An opportunity to see oneself as an active participant in the future
Engagement in learning; and
Opportunity for mastery.
Developing Responsible Youth: A Cycle of Professional Action
The thirteen objectives listed under the eight focus areas in the Developing
Responsible Youth Initiative are accomplished by teams of youth development
educators. They continuously work to accomplish three related, overlapping focus
area/objective specific processes. Each team works to build youth development
professional capacity, develop and refine best professional practices and expand
the rigor of impact evaluation as they:
Scan the environment for emerging focus area specific youth development needs.
Design and deliver programs responsive to those existing and emerging needs.
Design evaluation tools to facilitate program impacts for reporting into
the Extension Reporting System.
Each focus area/objective team works from the same outline format so elements
of objectives and findings can be easily shared.
