Dr. Ashurst became the national co-chair in Fall 2018 for the Youth Experiencing Homelessness National Subcommitee, one of the 7 subcommittees of the  "Access, Equity and Belonging Committee" (AEBC), a national priority through USDA, National 4-H, and Extension Committee on Policy.

Ashurst co-chairs the multi-state subcommittee, currently including Extension personnel from 13 states that are conducting programming for youth who are experiencing or at high risk for experiencing homelessness. The subcommittee has monthly virtual meetings to plan out multi-state efforts, share ideas, and provide support to one another. During the reporting year, the multi-state subcommittee submitted joint proposals for 6 national conferences and trainings. All were accepted. During these workshops/panels, they have spoken about their programming and about how to effectively reach out to homeless and unstably housed youth through Extension programming. The subcommittee served as capstone speakers for the National 4-H E-Academy in Fall 2018, where they had over 300 virtual attendees. The subcommittee completed a journal article in May 2019 that was submitted to the Journal of Youth Development about their multi--state work and data collected from attendees of the 4-H E-Academy. The subcommittee has completed a working logic model, list of national organizations and web sites, list of national funding opportunities, and more to make publicly available by the end of summer 2019 on the AEBC national website.