Program Quality and Accountability
How do we know that the work we are doing is the best it can
be? Against what standard do we compare
ourselves? One way to leverage existing or future partnerships with other
youth-serving organizations is to examine best practices for our field. Positive youth development is a science-based
field and there are many organizations who are willing to share what they’ve
learned with us. They can help with:
- Best practices in planning, implementation and
administration of youth programs;
- Lessons learned in reaching underserved
audiences;
- Pitfalls to be avoided when trying new
techniques;
-
Experience in data collection and analysis,
including publicly available data sets that are applicable to our population.
More and more the field of positive youth development, both
in private organizations and in the federal government, uses data to drive
program planning and decision-making.
Are we keeping up with that trend?
Do we know what data are useful and how to tell a compelling story of
4-H success? Our positive youth
development partners have many tools that we can use to demonstrate the effect
of our programming. Let’s partner with our
positive youth development colleagues and leverage the information they have to
share!
Learning
Learning is a vital part of the 4-H positive youth
development experience. At 4-H National Headquarters, we partner with
many internal and external stakeholders to assure that we provide the best
information and resources available. The 4-H Learning Working group is a
collaboration of internal 4-H partners who have developed a new learning
definition and framework for 4-H from a positive youth development perspective.
An external example is 4-H National Headquarters' partnership with NASA to
create a curriculum that will be available throughout the 4-H system and to the
general public. These two examples are among many ways that 4-H leverages
partnerships to stay at the forefront of learning in positive youth
development.
Access, Equity & Opportunity
Leveraging partnerships is critical when considering access,
equity and opportunity. When developing and implementing your programs consider questioning the following:
- Can I/the program effectively address the needs
of diverse audiences?
- Are current/new volunteers prepared to serve
diverse audiences equitably?
- Are you/your program skilled to identify new
resource groups for partnerships for program equity?
- Am I/the program skilled to build partner relationships
for equity?
- Can I/the program engage advocates or champions
who have evidence equitable practice with a particular new/diverse audiences?
- Can I/the program provide opportunities to
equitably build social capitol to build partnerships?
- Are your/the advisory committees reflective of
the diversity in your/the community of responsibility?
Having a clear awareness of what you and/or your program is able to
provide can help identify partners who can fill any gaps or enhance
areas of limitations.
Interaction Institute for Social Change | Artist: Angus Maguire www.interactioninstitute.org; www.madewithangus.com.
Partnerships
A team of 4-H professionals, convened by 4-H National
Headquarters, has been working on updating the 4-H Professional Research,
Knowledge and Competencies (PRKC). The new document is expected to be released
in the first part of 2017. The Partnerships section of the PRKC has been
revised to focus on three primary topics: Youth as Partners, Families as
Partners, and Organizations and Communities as Partners. Within each of these
topics are a series of professional competencies that will lead to “engaging
youth in community development, and the broader community in youth
development.” Stay tuned for more information about this important resource.
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