The Boone County Extension Affirmative action plan lists increasing teen involvement in 4-H programs as a priority. And our 4-H group enrollment in Boone County shows a sharp decline in high school aged youth being involved in our program vs middle and elementary. In 2022-23 4-H Program year our program saw 1380 8^th grade youth and only 404 9-12^th grade youth. So, there is a need for more teenage involvement in Boone County. With this decline we are not getting the long-term outcomes in the thrive model that we would like to be seeing in Boone County Youth.

My first step in increasing the participation of high school age adolescents was by offering the 4-H Teen Club. The Teen Club meets at least monthly and is a group of 6-12^th grade age youth. The Club focuses on developing youths’ leadership and civic engagement skills. When starting the club membership was low, with around 6 young people, and it has grown to a club of around 20, over the course of a year. Meeting activities have included teambuilding, 4-H achievement planning, college and career readiness and voting 101. 4 of the youth also where able to experience the Kentucky 4-H Teen Conference and 3 of those will experience 4-H Issues Conference in November. And our Teen Clubs new president will serve on our 4-H Advisory Council starting in January of 2025.

Teen Club has been a success in Boone County. A one-year evaluation was given at our first meeting of the new program year to the youth that had come for one year as more youth hits the milestone, they will also fill out evaluations. The original 6 youth that started coming in October of 2023 said they had made friends through teen club, learned about leadership skills, and delt like members of the community through teen club. All 6-youth said they are more likely to identify problems in their community since beginning in teen club and are more likely to take a leadership role in a group of people than they were before starting teen club.