October 15, 2021
4-H Community Vitality Leadership Program
Submitted by Aliah Mestrovich Seay
Are you a youth leader looking for an opportunity to grow your communication skills? Or are you a member of a local organization that is looking for a program to get youth civically engaged? The 4-H Community Vitality Team provides resources to enable positive growth and experiential learning through its many curricular offerings. From Visual Thinking Strategies to Community Conversations, youth will have the opportunity to sharpen their critical communication skills and demonstrate them in important leadership roles.
Here are all the programs we offer!
Visual Thinking Strategies: Visual Thinking strategies is an arts-based approach to dialogue that incorporates visual art to inspire deep discussion. This 4-H Community Vitality program, developed by the Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art in conjunction with K-State Research and Extension incentivizes critical thinking and team building.
Conversation Boot Camp: Conversation Boot Camp is an interactive experience that teaches participants skills and concepts that enable 4-H Community Conversations. It covers topics such as empathy, active listening, and communication styles which allow youth to hone their communication skills and adapt them for leadership activities.
ICDD Facilitator Training: Institute for Civic Discourse and Democracy Facilitator Training starts by having our facilitators-in-training experience a community conversation. If they have not already, they will act as participants first to get comfortable with the process. They will also have training sessions on how to become a facilitator. Next, facilitators are given the materials to facilitate a community conversation. Lastly, facilitators participate in practice by working in groups with other trainees, taking turns serving as the facilitators, and deepening their communication skills. After this training they will become a certified ICDD Facilitator and to demonstrate their skills at a 4-H Community Conversations event!
4-H Community Conversations: Youth learning to host a 4-H Community Conversations and/or learning to train other youth to be facilitators is one of the capstone events of this series. This 4-hour session will center around the topic of the chosen issue guide from the National Issues Forum Guides Institute. Youth will come together in small groups to discuss and deliberate with the help of trained youth facilitators. Afterwards, they will give a short group presentation over the common ground that they have reached as well as an action plan.
Leadership Summit: The leadership summit is a customizable program designed with the intention to accommodate any leadership event. The hosting local Extension unit can decide on any of our curricular offerings such as VTS, Conversation Boot Camp, or Community Conversations. These full day events are often interspersed with fun activities, lunch, team-building exercises, and more!
For more information on the Community Conversations Series, feel free to visit our website at https://www.kansas4-h.org/projects/personal-development/Stories-matter.html.
To request an event with your local organization, please fill out our sign-up sheet at https://forms.gle/DfDrvDRS6odJ9V1G8.