Browsing by Subject "Youth Development"
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Item 4-H Expressive Arts and Brain-Based Learning Research(1999) Shields, CarolMinnesota 4-H Expressive Arts programs have been an important part of 4-H youth development programming for more than two decades. Each year 20,000 to 30,000 young people, ages 8 to 19, are involved in programs offered through a variety of venues in every Minnesota county. Programs and activities include performance art, visual arts, technical theater, script development, writing, and clowning. New pedagogical approaches are continually developed to engage young people in informal, non-competitive learning experiences in the arts.Item The 4-H Involvement in Workforce Preparation(1998) Sims, MichelleThe Dramatic increase in the need for a skilled, knowledgeable workforce requires preparing youth for meaningful employment. The Center for 4-H Youth Development's involvement in work and life skills gives youth more opportunities to develop attitudes and values that prepare them to enter adulthood. Students encouraged and trained from a young age to pursue knowledge in a format they find interesting and challenging are ready to successfully face the world.Item America's Promise: A Catalyst for Youth Issues(2002) Floyd, Donald; Sauer, RichardThe support of and commitment to America's Promise from most major youth organizations is strong, with optimism about the future. This optimism includes continuing increased awareness of the needs of youth and the role nonformal youth development organizations can play in meeting those needs. It also includes hope for an expanded national, state, and local resource commitment to support proven youth organizations in expanding their reach to and impact on young people.Item Community-Based Program Evaluation: Implications for Program Developers(1999) Byrne, Richard; Mancini, Jay; Marek, LydiaAs Extension programming moves from deficit-based program models which focus on what people do not possess to identifying and mobilizing strengths, the difficulties and dilemmas related to documenting program effectiveness remain. In many cases, research that would lead to such documentation is viewed as an obstacle rather than an asset. This paper highlights key issues pertaining to evaluation of community-based programs for children, youth, and families; discusses challenges common to Extension educators and program evaluators; and cites common misunderstandings of the evaluation process.Item Learning by Doing and the Youth-Driven Model(1998) Carlson, StephanIn the non-formal setting of 4-H Youth Development, it has long been the motto that youth learn best when they are actively involved in relevant, real-world situations. This "learning by doing" is often associated with the type of learning model encouraged by 4-H organizations.Item Promoting Organizational Change Through Collaboration(1998) Dunham, TrudyHow might youth development professionals do their work in the future? With reduced budgets and staffing and changing demographics, Extension educators are looking at new ways to fulfill the land-grant mission through new audiences. This new look connects community-based programs through the Internet, where professionals work hand-in-hand with other professionals from other states as if they were in the same county. Technology is bringing the knowledge or the university to every home in the nation.Item Source, Fall 2007(University of Minnesota Extension, 2007) University of Minnesota ExtensionItem Source, Spring-Summer 2007(University of Minnesota Extension, 2007) University of Minnesota ExtensionItem Taking Aim at Youth Development(1999) Hauer, Angie; Carlson, StephanIt is important that the state, county, and clubs focus more attention on encouraging participation in natural resources and related natural science programs, developing critical thinking skills of youth, including youth with disabilities, youth from urban areas, and minorities, as well as strengthening vocational competence. These objectives need to become observable outcomes.Item Understanding an Action Research Process in a Youth Sport Organization(2021-07) Okamoto, KatlinYouth sport is often considered a setting for ‘youth development’ and for young people to acquire ‘life skills’. In shifting from a sole focus on physical fitness and sporting competence to a more complex understanding of young person and ‘life skills’, the coach becomes a youth worker. Yet, to claim that youth sport can play a role in youth development is complex and dependent on the theoretical and practical chosen frames of youth development and their corresponding goals and values. When ‘life skills’ are presumed to be acquired- these too have social meaning- they are often done within an adolescent and/or ‘positive youth development’ frame and are obtained inequitably across age, social class, ethnicity, gender, geography, and the like. This suggests existing understandings of ‘youth development’ and ‘life skills’ in youth sport are narrow and inadequate, in social terms and of themselves, without full recognition of social class, ethnicity, gender, and other social demographics. Thus, an opportunity to expand the embodied meanings of ‘youth development’, and what outcomes are desired, in youth sport exists- both those of adults and those of youth players. One possible approach is through democratic process embedded in a civic youth work orientation and potentially overlapping classic youth coaching strategies and carried out through an action research process, one more common in other areas of education practice.This dissertation sought to understand action research as an individual, team, programmatic, and organizational change process in a youth sport organization in an upper-middle class, suburban, Midwest community. To do this, an action research project was developed, implemented, and assessed in a new youth soccer club. The study had two levels- the action research project focused on exploring the core values with youth players (Level I), and a self-reflection on the process of doing action research (Level II). The project consisted of twenty four, one-hour sessions with ~ twenty eight youth- boys and girls from two soccer teams- a co-facilitator, and myself. The project took place over a period of five months and was informed by community youth development and social justice youth development theories, a civic youth work orientation, and the researcher’s expertise as a licensed soccer coach. Data were collected before, during, and after the project in the form of interviews, field notes, observations, artefacts, documentation, a learning journal, archival records, and dialog with ‘critical friends’ and were analyzed for qualitative themes. Several findings emerged at Level I and Level II of the study. Youth players shared a commitment to and were able to live out the soccer club’s core values (teamwork, respect, leadership, ownership) in their everyday soccer lives, and sometimes in other youth life realms, and enjoyed the experience. Parents and club directors expressed their satisfaction with the project. I learned about my ability to create a democratic youth work space in a youth sport organization (Level I) within my coach training and also with the young people and with my co-facilitator. The action research project showed itself as possible in the youth sport club and trust and relationship building emerged as essential to the project’s start, implementation, and completion in the youth sport organization. These findings suggest youth sport can be amenable to a civic youth work practice and a democratic process is possible in U.S. youth sport clubs, albeit with difficulty, patience, skill, and fortuitous conditions. This study has implications for exploring youth sport as a place for youth work and it provides evidence of specific “life skills” that can be achieved through such practice. For those youth workers who utilize theories of community youth development or social justice youth development, or for social workers who identify as youth and community workers, these findings can be read to encourage further consideration of the ways economic inequality influences outcomes and opportunities and/or the way that cultural differences may alter taken-for-granted values and practices. Finally, this study can inform youth sport policy to better align with desired coaching practices, and for action research as a coach development process within sport. However, given the realities of the club and the youth and families included in this study, it is vital that civic youth development work also be undertaken with young people, families, and communities from a wider array of social class, ethic/racial background, and geographic communities in order to understand the cultural and social contexts of such goals and practices. My professional development brought into personal tension the differences, as well as similarities, between my coaching training, orientation, and practice and that school of youth work called community youth work. This should be explored more deeply across social class, gender, ethnicity/race, and geographic spaces. Keywords: Youth sport, youth work, action research, social workItem Youth and nature: assessing the impact of an integrated wellness curriculum on nature based play and nature appreciation for youth in out-of-school time recreation programming.(2009-05) Lewis, Terence Grant , Jr.The United States is facing a dilemma related to the wellbeing of today's children and adolescents. Youth, on a broader scale, are increasingly afflicted with what author Richard Louv, in his book Last Child in the Woods (2005), has labeled "nature deficit disorder" (NDD). The NDD phenomenon is considered to have emerged as a result of children and adolescents not having as many direct experiences with or exposure to nature. Estimations are that from the years 1997 to 2003 there was a 50% drop in the number of youth who participated in outdoor activities, including walking, hiking, and fishing ("Mother Nature Knows Best", 2007). Furthermore, only six percent of children age 9 to 13 plays outside on their own (Louv, 2007). Play, however, is considered an essential part of the learning process throughout life and should not be neglected (Rieber, Smith, & Noah, 1998). In addition, there is growing evidence indicating that there are healthy outcomes associated with unstructured play in nature and that although children only play outdoors for limited amounts of time, they enjoy playing outdoors, and given more choice and/or opportunity, many would play outdoors more than they currently do (British Market Research Bureau, 2005; Ericson, 2001; White & Stoecklin, 1998). The purpose of the study was to further investigate the premise that structured integrative health and wellness programs in an out-of-school setting can play a significant role in helping young people adopt physical activity habits and behaviors, as well as influencing dietary choices. This study focused specifically on the evaluation of the Säjai® Wise Kids® Outdoors program to gain an increased comprehension of the effects that may result from intentional out-of-school time programming with wellness and outdoor exploration focus areas. The program was designed to be fun, experiential, and educational in promoting nature based play and nature appreciation in youth ages 6 to11 years of age while teaching them basic wellness concepts. The research design used to evaluate the program's effects is best described as a mixed-methods approach. The study is based on a quasi-experimental, repeated measures design that utilized a collective (multi-site) case study technique with pre-, post- and follow-up assessments. Multiple sources of evidence were used in the study, including surveys, observations, and focus groups with youth and staff. The Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) served as the theoretical framework as the latent constructs of the TPB have been indicated in the literature as being predictive of behavior related to physical activity and dietary choices. Although program enrollment in the cities of St. Paul and San Francisco totaled 170 participants, 67 youth ages 6 to 13 from diverse socio-economic and cultural backgrounds completed all three phases of data collection. Quantitative measures were administered to assess change in adolescent outcomes related to the latent constructs of the TPB. While results of the quantitative analysis did not show significant differences across the three measures of the study, youth were found to display significantly higher than average means at baseline. This supports the possibility that youth who showed a higher affiliation towards the constructs measured at baseline, as well as at the end of implementation, will have a continued or greater desire or intention to spend time in the outdoors, thus leading to increased physical activity. Triangulation of qualitative and quantitative findings provided further evidence that out-of-school time programs that are intentionally designed to engage youth with concepts focused on wellness and the natural environment, such as Wise Kids® Outdoors, have the ability to serve as a gateway of opportunity for youth to explore and discover a relationship with nature.Item Youth and nature:aassessing the impact of an integrated wellness curriculum on nature based play and nature appreciation for youth in out-of-school time recreation programming.(2009-05) Lewis, Terence Grant , Jr.The United States is facing a dilemma related to the wellbeing of today's children and adolescents. Youth, on a broader scale, are increasingly afflicted with what author Richard Louv, in his book Last Child in the Woods (2005), has labeled "nature deficit disorder" (NDD). The NDD phenomenon is considered to have emerged as a result of children and adolescents not having as many direct experiences with or exposure to nature. Estimations are that from the years 1997 to 2003 there was a 50% drop in the number of youth who participated in outdoor activities, including walking, hiking, and fishing ("Mother Nature Knows Best", 2007). Furthermore, only six percent of children age 9 to 13 plays outside on their own (Louv, 2007). Play, however, is considered an essential part of the learning process throughout life and should not be neglected (Rieber, Smith, & Noah, 1998). In addition, there is growing evidence indicating that there are healthy outcomes associated with unstructured play in nature and that although children only play outdoors for limited amounts of time, they enjoy playing outdoors, and given more choice and/or opportunity, many would play outdoors more than they currently do (British Market Research Bureau, 2005; Ericson, 2001; White & Stoecklin, 1998). The purpose of the study was to further investigate the premise that structured integrative health and wellness programs in an out-of-school setting can play a significant role in helping young people adopt physical activity habits and behaviors, as well as influencing dietary choices. This study focused specifically on the evaluation of the Säjai® Wise Kids® Outdoors program to gain an increased comprehension of the effects that may result from intentional out-of-school time programming with wellness and outdoor exploration focus areas. The program was designed to be fun, experiential, and educational in promoting nature based play and nature appreciation in youth ages 6 to11 years of age while teaching them basic wellness concepts.The research design used to evaluate the program's effects is best described as a mixed-methods approach. The study is based on a quasi-experimental, repeated measures design that utilized a collective (multi-site) case study technique with pre-, post- and follow-up assessments. Multiple sources of evidence were used in the study, including surveys, observations, and focus groups with youth and staff. The Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) served as the theoretical framework as the latent constructs of the TPB have been indicated in the literature as being predictive of behavior related to physical activity and dietary choices. Although program enrollment in the cities of St. Paul and San Francisco totaled 170 participants, 67 youth ages 6 to 13 from diverse socio-economic and cultural backgrounds completed all three phases of data collection. Quantitative measures were administered to assess change in adolescent outcomes related to the latent constructs of the TPB. While results of the quantitative analysis did not show significant differences across the three measures of the study, youth were found to display significantly higher than average means at baseline. This supports the possibility that youth who showed a higher affiliation towards the constructs measured at baseline, as well as at the end of implementation, will have a continued or greater desire or intention to spend time in the outdoors, thus leading to increased physical activity. Triangulation of qualitative and quantitative findings provided further evidence that out-of-school time programs that are intentionally designed to engage youth with concepts focused on wellness and the natural environment, such as Wise Kids® Outdoors, have the ability to serve as a gateway of opportunity for youth to explore and discover a relationship with nature.