Team
Co-Chairs: Harriett Edwards, State 4-H Office and Joyce Watts, Yancey
Co-Chairs: R. Dale Safrit, State 4-H Office; Millie Bruton, Montgomery; Theresa Clark, Durham
Team Members: Mary Arnaudin, Transylvania; Cathy Brown, Hoke; Gina Garcia-Somuk, Wake; Krista Hancock, Cumberland; Lori Ivey, Stanly; Eve Kindley, Madison; Kathy Kuhlman, Macon; Stacy Morgen-Demer, Craven; Suzanne Van Rijn, Northampton; Shannon McCollum, State 4-H Office

Objective 12
Youth and adult volunteerism will strengthen a community’s capacity for positive youth development.

Objective 13
Youth and adults will be engaged in positive community leadership roles.

Program Description
Youth and adult leadership development, through educational programs as well as volunteer service, are both historical foundations and contemporary initiatives of Cooperative Extension nationally. This state major program empowers county 4-H professionals to actively engage youth and adults in meaningful partnerships to (1) strengthen critical individual and shared life skills; (2) strengthen, multiply, and increase the relevance of Extension educational programs; and (3) improve the quality of life for our state’s citizens and communities. Current and emerging programs in this initiative include the new TRY-IT! Web-based curriculum; TRY civic education and food, nutrition, food safety, and fitness education initiatives; county Youth Advocacy Committees, County 4-H Councils, and 4-H Volunteer Leaders’ Associations; 4-H Ambassadors; State 4-H Teen Summit and State 4-H Congress; and the reinvented 4-H Master Volunteer A.C.E. (Achievement in Continuing Education) Program. Evaluation tools include: (1) youth and adult volunteer involvement longitudinal record systems; (2) youth and adult pre- and post tests measuring knowledge, opinion, and aspiration changes addressing leadership, citizenship, and volunteerism; (3) youth and adult pre- and post tests measuring knowledge, opinion, and aspiration changes addressing teen-adult partnerships; and (4) youth skills assessment tools addressing individual and shared leadership.

Situation Statement
North Carolina’s communities and municipalities face increasing challenges in providing adequate public programs and services for their citizens. The need and demand for human services in communities to maintain and improve quality of life continue to grow, especially in very rural and large urban areas. More citizens must assume active leadership roles through community service if the quality of community life is to be maintained and improved. Current budget deficits and resulting cutbacks in state human and community service programs have increased demands on local governments to assume responsibility for a wider range of human and community service programs; consequently, human and material resources are extremely limited at all levels of state and local government. However, local governments have neither the mandate nor the resources to provide the levels of services necessary to alleviate social problems.

The need for active citizen engagement in North Carolina's communities through leadership, volunteerism and service continues to grow in direct response to increasing population and social needs and decreasing budgets and governmental services. Only through grass-roots participation will human and government agencies, not-for-profit organizations, community based organizations and citizen groups, and individual citizens successfully identify and address the issues facing our state. To maximize local human and financial resources, it is vital to encourage local citizens to become involved in the provision of human and community services. Beyond these services, there is a need to involve citizens as leaders in the many and varied activities that contribute to the quality of community life.

Research
Cooperative Extension defines volunteers as adults or teens in leadership capacities who contribute time to the promotion, organization, assistance or leadership of an organization without receiving payment for services rendered (USDA, 1990). These individuals serve under the supervision of professional Extension staff. While volunteers are involved in all subject matter areas in North Carolina Cooperative Extension, no other area of program delivery depends so heavily on volunteers as 4-H youth development programs (Rasmussen, 1989). Volunteers in the North Carolina 4-H program may serve in any of six categories of service (Clark, 1989). They may provide programs to 4-H youth directly, they may serve other volunteers, they may provide indirect services with technical support or support services, they may serve as advocates for youth or 4-H, they may serve in administrative roles to carry out larger programs, or they may serve in policy-setting positions on boards and councils to assist in planning. Regardless of their assigned role, volunteers are critical in the delivery of 4-H programming across the state. As 4-H programs expand to meet the changing needs of today’s youth, the need for adult and teen involvement in leadership and volunteer roles continues to expand.

A 2001 study of volunteering in North Carolina revealed that 58% of the population had contributed time to volunteer activities in the previous 12 months (Guseh & Winders, 2002). These volunteers performed a wide variety of tasks, but nearly three-fourths indicated that they were involved in direct client service delivery. Overall, this study indicates that volunteerism is extensive and growing in North Carolina. Almost all of the volunteers participating in the study were motivated by a belief in the cause and the desire to help others. The findings indicate that personal contact is still the most effective method to recruit new volunteers.

Numerous studies have highlighted teens’ desires and initiatives to work together with peers and adults as leaders in addressing the serious issues facing us as a society (Auck, 1999; Independent Sector, 1992, 1994, 1996, 1998, 2001; Safrit & King, 1999; Youth Service America, 1994). In return, they both experience intrinsic satisfaction and expect extrinsic rewards that enable them to be successful both today and into the future. Safrit, Scheer, and King (2001) provided an excellent discussion of how to develop meaningful service opportunities for engaging teens in their communities, taking into account teens’ unique developmental characteristics. According to the authors, “teens are more willing to actively engage in mixed gender groups and seek greater responsibility/decision making in what volunteer projects to conduct” (p. 19) as active partners in community-based programs. The concern for youth civil disengagement continues to be addressed by differing agencies, inclusive of government, national associations, school systems, organizations and the public, at large. The “New Millennium Project” conducted by the National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS), in 1999, found that youth lack knowledge, interest and trust concerning American politics and public life, in general (Branson, 1999). Research suggests disengagement occurs, most often, when those who are affected by the decisions, are not included in the decision-making and implementation processes (Fredericks, Kaplan & Zeisler, 2001). However, adults are the leading contenders in making the decisions for resources and programs in the community, which ultimately affect the youth it is serving.

Collins and Branham (1999) suggested creating collaborative opportunities, inclusive of youth and adults, as being an essential avenue towards enhancing youth civil engagement, which influences the betterment of the entire community. The “New Millennium Project” reported youth’s belief that utilizing a participatory approach to teaching government courses would encourage youth involvement in the community (Branson, 1999). By participating in a communal process of decision-making, the sense of ownership and empowerment through self-fulfillment increases through the understanding of its outcomes (Kothari, 1996). Gardner (1995) also concurred that young people need to be a part of the decision-making process. Developmentally, providing youth the opportunity to participate, lends to fulfilling the need of belonging, self-esteem and independence (Kothari, 1996).

Community-based organizations (including volunteer and service based programs) are excellent learning laboratories for teen citizens of our state to demonstrate their advocacy capacities, amplify their voices of concern, and become engaged in volunteerism and service. Chambers and Phelps (1994) argued that community-based organizations have contributed a great deal to the development of youth actively engaged in their communities. The authors stated that the organizations provided opportunities for youth to “test their judgment under pressure in the face of opposition” and “ to exercise responsibilities and perhaps to try out one or another of the skills required for leadership” (p. 53). Youth engaged in social activism through volunteerism and service also increase cultural and social awareness and personal and social skills. Several organizations and school systems have implemented youth/adult collaborative experiences within their local communities.

Engaging teens in meaningful leadership roles has become a major focus of many contemporary not-for-profit organizations. Today’s cultural and political climates demand that community-based organizations approach youth not as mere recipients of programs, nor even as mere resources in program development, but rather as valued and equal partners in the holistic program development, implementation, and evaluation process. As Long et al. (n.d.) noted:

[There is ample] evidence that weaving the work of youth development, civic development, and community development makes sense for three important reasons: First, young people, who make up 26 percent of the population, possess vision, creativity and energy that is largely untapped. They have much to contribute to organizations and communities. Second, young people, when called to action, contribute to their own development, as well as to the development of the common good. And third, constructive action and involvement are always and everywhere the best defense against school failure, drug and alcohol abuse, teen pregnancy, crime, and violence – pathologies society cannot afford to remediate, even if it knew how to. (p. 3)

However, many not-for-profit administrators and program leaders often experience frustration and encounter unforeseen obstacles as they seek to design, implement and manage community based programs involving teens as partners and volunteers (Safrit, 2002). First, as adults, it is often challenging for us to even approach teens; we have developed a societal stereotype that teens are, by definition, rebellious and nonconforming and have little sincere interest in anything but themselves and their immediate needs. Secondly, even if the initial invitation is extended and accepted, we often subconsciously expect teens to fail in following-through on their responsibilities and commitments, again assuming that they will redirect their energies and attentions to anything that is more immediate and more exciting for them personally. And, finally, even if we have successfully invited teens to join our programs and they have followed through on their commitments, we subconsciously resist delegating to them true power and authority to perform, instead constantly shadowing their efforts and suggesting alternative methods and options based upon the clichéd, “our experience as adults.”

There is an abundance of literature that, both pragmatically and conceptually, addresses the topics of positive teen development and leadership within not-for-profit settings. Lofquist (1989) first brought our attention to the fact that teens should be approached as valuable resources (and not mere recipients of programmatic action) in addressing issues facing them and their communities. Bronfenbrenner (1989) approached adolescent development within the context of the individual teen’s larger real-world settings and environments. His bioecological theory identified four distinct systems encompassing the individual teen’s critical interactions with others and the environment: the microsystem (the setting in which the teen lives and where most direct interaction occurs, such as the family, peer groups, school groups, etc.); the mesosystem (entailing the teen’s direct interactions as a member of respective interacting microsystems); the exosystem (the overall social setting and culture in which the individual teen lives; while the teen may not have an active role in this system, it still affects the individual teen); the macrosystem (involving daily interactions between the three previously described systems); and, the chronosystem (the sociohistorical patterns of environmental events and transitions over the life of the teen that may affect her/him, such as divorce, working mothers, etc.) The Iowa Life Skills Model (Hendricks, 1998) allows individuals developing programs addressing or involving teens to incorporate the development of targeted life skills into the program, skills that will prove beneficial to teen participants. A life skill is defined as any ability “individuals can learn that will help them to be successful in living a productive and satisfying life (p. 4). The model identifies four categories of critical life skills: thinking/managing (including ten individual skills); relating/caring (encompassing nine skills); working/giving (including seven life skills); and, being/living (addressing nine separate life skills). Finally, the Search Institute’s (2001) assets-based approach to teen development provides a strength-based approach to developing programs that effectively engage teens, rather than focusing on adolescent problems, deficits, and dysfunctions. The model identifies 40 critical factors for a young person’s positive growth and development, organized into 20 external assets (that teens receive from people and institutions in their lives) and 20 internal assets (internal qualities to teens that guide the choices they make and create a sense of centeredness, purpose, and focus). The external assets include the four categories of support, empowerment, boundaries, and expectations; the internal assets include commitment to learning, positive values, social competencies, and positive identity.

Target Audiences
The “Strengthening Communities Through Adult and Youth Volunteer Leadership” State Major Program of the North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service emphasizes critical and strategic action needed to actively engage adults and youth in meaningful partnerships to improve the quality of life for our state’s citizens and their communities. 4-H Youth Development has a long and rich history and tradition of nurturing older youth and adults to contribute their time, energies, and talents to community-based programs focused upon positive youth development. Focused around two major program objectives, our vision is to serve as a catalyst in transforming the hugely diverse human capital of our state into social capital through 4-H sponsored and directed community leadership, volunteerism, and service educational opportunities. We seek to build bridges between caring individuals and the youth who could benefit from that caring; between teens and adults who seek to work together to address the issues facing them and their peers; between Extension and other agencies and organizations who share the values of:

• Volunteerism as an effective strategy to build a stronger society;
• Youth as equal partners in our educational endeavors;
• Teamwork that interconnects people, programs, and educational events;
• Effective and meaningful collaborations between state and county programs;
• Programs that nurture strong and meaningful youth/adult partnerships; and
• Programs that empower and engage youth and adults as volunteers in service to their communities.

Specific target audiences include:

• Current 4-H teen members and adult volunteers;
• Other community teens and adults as potential volunteers; and
• Teens and adults interested in establishing meaningful and sustained partnerships

Resources

Last updated Nov 10, 2004