SAES-422 Multistate Research Activity Accomplishments Report
Sections
Status: Approved
Basic Information
- Project No. and Title: NCERA215 : Contribution of 4-H Participation to the Development of Social Capital Within Communities
- Period Covered: 07/01/2021 to 10/01/2022
- Date of Report: 12/12/2022
- Annual Meeting Dates: 10/14/2022 to 10/15/2022
Participants
Anderson, Chris (canders2@umd.edu) - University of Maryland; Baker, Barbara (barbara.baker@maine.edu) - University of Maine/Retired; Calvert, Matt (matthew.calvert@wisc.edu) - University of Wisconsin; Emery, Mary* (memery2@unl.edu) - University of Nebraska - Lincoln; Fields, Nia* (nfields@umd.edu) - University of Maryland; Henness, Steve* (hennesss@missouri.edu) - University of Missouri; Klemme, Neil* (neil.klemme@wisc.edu) - University of Wisconsin; Lonning, Jacquie* (jlonning@umn.edu) - University of Minnesota; Nathaniel, Keith (kcnathaniel@ucanr.edu) - University of California; Scott, Denis (denis.scott@mail.wvu.edu) - West Virginia University
See notes available here
The majority of the discussion focused on next steps for the group to pursue. A major activity of the past 1+ years has been the development of a social capital toolkit that we now plan to disseminate to practitioners for both implementation and to gather evidence of practices that incorporate social capital development in their programming and evaluation practices. Additionally, we discussed new and continued research opportunities.
Accomplishments
Currently, our team consists of 7 states: California, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, West Virginia, Wisconsin, as well as some individuals retired from their positions, but still interested in the work.
Short-term Outcomes: Our team continues to share our work locally in an effort to spread knowledge of promising program practices across the state lines. Two of our members have been elevated to leadership roles in their states and in national committees which provides an opportunity for them to continue promoting the opportunities for social capital development in youth and community development work.
Our group recently completed our second toolkit:
- Building youth social capital on purpose: A toolkit for youth and community development professionals. Henness, S., Anderson, C., Eds. - Currently submitted for 4-H Peer Review process.
Our group has continued to have presentations accepted at national conferences:
- Building youth and community social capital on purpose: A toolkit for youth and community development professionals. Accepted workshop at the 2021 National Association of Extension 4-H Youth Development Professionals Conference in Memphis, Tennessee, November 2021. Anderson, C., Henness, S., Klemme, N., Nathaniel, K., Lonning, J.
- Bridging youth and community development work: An introduction to the building social capital on purpose toolkit. Accepted poster at the National Association of Community Development Extension Professionals conference in Indianapolis, Indiana, June 2022. Emery, M., Klemme, N., Scott, D.
And individually, many of our group members have had publications and presentations within their states (see below).
Outputs: Since our last report, the group has maintained a public website to disseminate our project and share relevant resources - https://4h-social-capital.extension.org/ . We are planning to collect stories of featured projects to showcase on the website.
Spearheaded by a few members of our group, the team developed our second toolkit, now complete and headed for peer review through National 4-H Curriculum Review. Many team members contributed as authors, editors, or ideators. We have presented about the progress of the toolkit in past conferences and now with a completed package, our focus will shift to dissemination of the toolkit and collection of data related to implementation.
Activities: Data collection on a youth social capital survey was paused during the pandemic and has continued to be paused during periods of staff transitions amongst team members. The group anticipates relaunching this survey in the coming year once IRB approval is received - the hope is to be able to collect data online as well as in person, from interested states. We also plan to connect with the Common Measures and Thrive teams to review their data collection instruments and determine if some of the questions line up with social capital measurements that we could use for secondary analysis.
Impacts
- With the pause of our data collection efforts due to the COVID-19 pandemic, current collected impacts are anecdotal, but important. We conducted an appreciative inquiry analysis and noted the impacts we had seen over the course of our team’s collaborative work. Our team members have been positioned well to keep social capital at the forefront of national decision making as we’ve intentionally developed connections with Dr. Mary Arnold who is heading up the 4-H Thrive framework utilization for National 4-H, and two of our team members are in state 4-H leader positions which has led to their passion for social capital to be inserted into the meetings they attend. At the 2022 National 4-H Conference, NIFA officials, including Dr. Shannon Horrillo, the Division Director, frequently mentioned the importance of social capital building through youth’s 4-H involvement, showing that these outcomes continue to be sought after through 4-H involvement. Our group has also been sought after to provide insight on social capital development within 4-H. Three of our group members participated in a nation-wide focus group with the SEARCH Institute. In 2021, our group had the opportunity to present to the Federal Interagency Work Group on Youth Development. Since that meeting, a member of our group has continued to have follow-up conversations sharing resources on promising program practices.
Publications
In addition to the presentations listed above, the following publications and presentations have involved one or more members of our group:
Calvert, M., Nathaniel, K., Brown, M. (2022). Developing Social Capital as a Conduit to Social Justice Fields, in N. I., & Shaffer, T. J. (Eds.). Grassroots Engagement and Social Justice through Cooperative Extension. MSU Press.
Liphart, D., Klemme, N., Meeker, I., (2022) Civic Engagement and Advocacy in Rural Wisconsin: Youth Development Through Legislative Forums, Journal of Youth Development, Vol. 17 Issue 3 DOI 10.5195/jyd.2022.1194