Pilot Project 4-H Thriving Vision Project Explored Ways to Enhance Program Reach and Impact

This spring the State 4-H Office and CCE Admin Organizational Development Unit partnered to pilot “The 4-H Thriving Vision Project”, a cohort initiative aiming to elevate the reach and impact of extension programs by leveraging the insights and perspectives of an Extension Program Advisory Committee (PAC) and building understanding about how the 4-H Thriving Model can help set the tone for 4-H work.

The five month cohort project intended to build understanding of Extension PACs, considering how the committees can identify gaps in participation, suggest improvements, and explore new audience opportunities. The involvement of external stakeholders, such as potential program participants not currently engaged, was explored as a method that could be particularly valuable. These “fresh eyes” can reveal opportunities that may be overlooked by those closely affiliated with the program.

Ten counties participated.  An initial survey of participants indicated that staff were most interested in the following:

• Update the advisory board and set new goals for 4-H.
• Improve connections and interactions with advisory committee members.
• Learn from other counties about how they meet community needs.
• Add more advisory members and get their feedback and suggestions.
• Find ways to involve youth, volunteers, and other community members in addressing local issues.
• Respond effectively to community needs and build confidence in CCE – 4-H as a partner.
• Support the growth of the committee and staff.
• Find ways to connect with Cornell Campus.

To get at these issues, the cohort explored topics through monthly meetings where the agenda included content presentations and group activities.  Resources and content shared was also offered in an online course that featured introductory material to the 4-H Thriving Model and the Program Advisory Committee Handbook.

Topics covered in the meetings and course from January to May included:

• Exploring Youth Thriving – designed to create awareness and familiarity with the mission, vision and values of the 4-H youth development and our positive youth development framework (The 4-H Thriving Model)
• Snapshot of Today – an exploration of available data (collected through the local Plans of Work and data collection) to understand where your program is currently.
• Opportunity for All – Building on teams learned from their data and considering how Associations can contributing to closing the opportunity gap for youth.
• A Vision for Tomorrow – applying info learned as a process of creating a strategic vision for the county 4-H program. The process and supporting tools allow counties to create a vision statement that describes the ideal future for 4-H in your County (5-7 years from now) and identify priority focus areas for moving the process ahead.
• Charting your Course – implementation plan – this session was all about writing strategies to get from the goals to results.

The pilot was offered to help county staff to effectively harness the power of diverse perspectives, driving the extension programs towards greater reach and impact.

As with any pilot, we learned a few things in the implementation of this effort.  In the beginning, the thought was to open the cohort to volunteers serving on Advisory committees as well as staff.  What we learned is that with so much staff turnover, there are many iterations of PACs across the state, and different understandings and expectations of staff members.  So staff plus volunteers in the same space didn’t always feel congruent.  While some counties might be able to apply the process to staff and volunteers together in a PAC setting, not all were ready to do that.  Additionally, there were some that came to learn more about the 4-H Thriving Model, and others that were there to learn about enriching their PAC.

That said, participating staff indicated that they appreciated the time together to learn collectively and collaboratively.  They gained tools and skills that could be helpful, and noted that the experience was especially helpful for new 4-H staff who were still learning about the concept of “thriving” and how 4-H can help youth to build confidence and competence in a way that helps them thrive.

The next steps are to optimize the online content for use by staff independently and for professional development trainings.  It was suggested that parallel printable content could also strengthen the utility of the resources, particularly for audiences not likely to take the online course.  There is also an interest in generalizing the content with specific audience resources to be useful for staff beyond 4-H Youth Development staff.

Interested in learning more?  Have suggestions or questions?  Please do contact cce-orgdev@cornell.edu.