Overview

This past year, 4-H, CalFresh Healthy Living, and the Master Gardener Program in Sutter has been collaborating together to serve youth and their families. Funded by the Sierra Health Foundation, a positive youth development program was designed to include four program components: 1) 4-H Embryology and Water Wizards school programming, 2) CalFresh Healthy Living school programming, 3) Master Gardener school garden programming, and 4) a four-week Ag-Venture summer day camp. 

Guided by social-ecological theory, each program component was theorized to increase child well-being through the positive interactions between program staff and youth throughout the duration of the program. Anticipated outcomes included increases in youth's: 1) social skills and responsibility, 2) healthy eating and physical activity, 3) agriculture knowledge and skills, 4) exposure to careers in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). These anticipated proximal outcomes were then theorized to influence youth's: 1) social competency, leadership, and energy balance and 2) college and career readiness. The anticipated distal outcomes include improving overall youth well being. See attached conceptual model.

How did 4-H, CalFresh, and Master Gardener collaborate?

Each week, staff from each program met together to talk about the program. These meetings talked about the following topics: 1) program design, 2) program implementation, 3) program evaluation, and 4) program dissemination. During these conversations, there were many research questions that surfaced. Here are some of the many topics that we uncovered:

• When seeking to target low-income families, should we charge a program fee for youth to participate in the Ag-Venture summer day camp? If so, how should we conceptualize a price that could help establish sustainability for future program implementations while also not "pricing out" the youth from participating?
• Who should staff the day-to-day operations of the youth programming? Should we use volunteers or hire part-time staff? Or should we incorporate a train-the-trainer approach and allow educators to deliver program components?
• What training was needed to ensure that all staff and volunteers have the necessary information to deliver high quality positive youth development programming? What should this training look like?
• How should we describe this entire initiative to external stakeholders? While the program was positive youth development, which is what 4-H does, CalFresh Healthy Living and the Master Gardener Program were also equally involved. 

These were some of the many discussions that our team had as we collaborated together as a team. There were certainly some disagreements, which is to be anticipated with group work, but overall the team came together to produce an innovative approach to Cooperative Extension programming among low-income families. These efforts were expected to support UC ANR's public value of "promoting healthy people and communities."

Preliminary results

While data collection is still occurring, here are some of the preliminary results based from questionnaires given to youth, parents, and educators.

• Older youth (grades 4-8) enjoyed the program, felt respected by camp staff, and learned new agriculture knowledge
• Younger youth (grades K-3) had fun at camp, felt camp counselors were nice, and learned more about science
• Parents were satisfied with communications from staff, felt the check-in procedure was easy, and were likely to recommend the summer day camp to other parents

Another result was that 36% of parents were familiar with the University of California Cooperative Extension. Note: A peer-reviewed manuscript with more results is being drafted and will be submitted to a journal in the near future. 

What lessons can we glean?

There are many lessons that we can learn from this innovative program. The following are some of the many lessons learned:

• Cooperative Extension program units can collaborate together to promote healthy people and communities.
• There is a need for more youth programming in the community.
• More research is needed on sustainable program staffing:
  • Hiring staff required significant time and logistical coordination.
  • Utilization of 4-H and Master Gardener volunteers may show promise for establishing a more sustainable staffing model.
  • Train-the-trainers appears to be a feasible staffing approach to delivering high-quality youth development programming in the schools.

References

Bronfenbrenner, U., & Morris, P. A. (2007). The Bioecological Model of Human Development. Handbook of Child Psychology, 793-828. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470147658.chpsy0114

Hsu, M. (2023). Ag-Venture campers dive ‘head first' into agriculture, natural resources. University of California Cooperative Extension. https://ucanr.edu/News/?routeName=newsstory&postnum=57709