Reflections on NAE4-HA 2015

Theresa, Myself, Shelia, and Christy at the NAE4-HA Banquet

This past week I was blessed with the opportunity to attend the National Association of Extension 4-H Agents Conference in Portland, Oregon. The conference is an annual event that offers a time for meeting with other professionals from around the nation, learning about their programs, discovering new ideas for my own program, and furthering myself professionally.  It is also a time of celebration with colleagues to congratulate them on their achievements on the regional and national level. We had 67 delegates from Ohio attend the Portland Conference this year! It was nice to have a large group of people I work with experiencing the same speakers, and workshops as myself. In reflection, I came away with 5 big concepts to use, or apply more to my 2016 programming.

1. Show and model what a good one looks like. Often times kids don’t know, what they don’t know. How can we as 4-H professionals model good 4-H projects, events, and leadership? I think by improving our expectations and making them even more clear, we can set our kids up for success in our county, and state levels. I am aiming to set up more clear goals of my hopes for the program to volunteers, so they can be part of this too.

2. Kids in the crisis of poverty make great leaders. Poverty is not something that was on the forefront of my youth development issues, but after our speaker, Dr. Donna Beegle, it is now. Kids who are worried about their next meal, where they are going to sleep, and if their siblings are safe often do not make good students. They don’t do homework, they don’t pay attention in class. They forget to bring in papers (because mom/dad aren’t home to sign them) and we look at them as being disobedient. However, what we miss is that they are fighting to survive. They are taking care of siblings, they are worried about things that people in middle class families take for granted. This sense of responsibility is how they stay resilient, and how we can make them great leaders in our programs. Instead of dismissing a child/teen as a problem, I need to make sure I am giving them a safe environment, and the skills they need to grow.

3. Break big tasks into small steps. Have you ever looked at a project and found yourself demotivated by the size of the workload? It happens to all of us. Teaching kids to break big projects into small steps is a strategy for success they will use for a long time. When working with my teens, I am planning to be more deliberate in showing the big picture, and how we are breaking it up into parts to accomplish the goal. The first thought I have is to use it with my promotional group, Buckeye Ambassadors. They work to market the program which is a huge task, but how am I going to help them get to the big goal if I don’t show them the steps they need to take in the meantime?

4. Environmental Education ROCKS! My favorite session was with LSU on different strategies for Environmental Education. We learned animal yoga poses, bird migration cycles, and insect life cycles all by getting up and moving. This session really will help me with working more of this type of education in to 4-H Residential Camp sessions that are healthy living based.

5. Collaborate, Collaborate, COLLABORATE! Through the week I have worked on becoming more comfortable asking my fellow 4-H professionals what their specialization is, and how we can work together. I was able to learn more about cloverbuds and how I can make my volunteer training better, and compared fun things like Jr. Fair issues, and how their shows run. I like talking with others about their programming because it gives me a chance to improve my own for the Van Wert Community.

Going to conferences is a great opportunity for 4-H professionals. Coming home is even more exciting! I cannot wait to apply what I have learned, and I feel renewed and ready for 2016 and the planning that will be taking place in the next few months before we kick off in January. I suppose even 4-H professionals need retreats to recharge too.