4-H utilizes high school students in a variety of settings to help them develop their leadership skills as well as life skills. For this reason, UK Cooperative Extension 4-H programs from Webster County, Hancock County, Ohio County, Henderson County, Daviess County and Union County partnered to offer a 4-H Teen Leadership Academy (TLA) for 8th-11th grade members. Under the direction of the county 4-H agents, four/five delegates were selected, through an application process, from each county to participate in a year-long leadership academy trainings focused on developing leadership, social, communication, and life skills.

The youth built relationships and worked in teams to accomplish tasks at each session. Some of the activities ranged from physical challenges at a “ropes course” to applying food safety and preparation skills in competing in a contest that included oral and visual presentations. After expanding their understanding of the job hiring process, each completed a resume. The resumes were reviewed and scored, so each teen had a resume ready to use with job interviews and college scholarship applications. After spending the day with a KET instructor, they worked in collaborative groups to create a marketing/promotional video that can be used on social media. Delegates from the host county led icebreakers and leadership activities for the delegation at each meeting.  Teens later implemented the leadership activities they learned by teaching at various summer day camps.

In order to graduate from the Teen Leadership Academy, the Teens had to work together and coordinate the multi county Team Challenge Camp for middle school youth at West KY 4-H Camp.   The camp was created to be very similar to the TV Reality Show “The Amazing Race” where participants were given clues to find the locations of each challenge. Once they reached their destination, they were given directions for a specific task that they must complete as a team. Once completed teams would race to the next team challenge station. A total of 30 Middle School members were divided into teams and had to work together to complete 8 different challenges.

Challenges were created by the Teen Leadership Academy using the 7 core curriculum areas (Science Engineering and Technology, Family and Consumer Science, Health, Communications and Leadership), however each task did challenge participants both physically and mentally. Each team was assigned a Teen Leadership Academy member to help them if they ran into any problems and help ensure participant safety. Challenges were also facilitated by the Teen Leadership Academy members.

Throughout the course of the camp, participants wore pedometers to track the level of activity. On average, 4-H members walked approximately 10,000 steps during the Team Challenge, which is the recommended amount of steps per day. Following the event, both participants and leaders completed surveys. Two of the most common answers for most valuable lesson learned during the event were the value of both verbal and non-verbal communications skills and teamwork. Many of the participants found that at first it was difficult to work with people that they did not know, but quickly realized how important it was to overcome that bearer in order to be successful as a team. Participants also commented on the amount of physical activity that was involved with the event and noted that they realized how much physical activity they were lacking in their daily routines.

Following the event both participants and leaders completed surveys. Some results were:

-100% of the survey respondents indicated they had to listen to other team members with ideas different from their own.

-100% felt they were better leaders after the camp -100% indicated they used information they learned to make decisions -100% indicated they had to work together to set and accomplish a goal.