Author: Crystal Smith
Planning Unit: Letcher County CES
Major Program: Leadership
Plan of Work: Developing Responsible Youth and Families--2020
Outcome: Intermediate Outcome
Success Story: Teen Conference 2021
When the COVID-19 pandemic shut down programming in March 2020 youth, families, and communities experienced long-term isolation and alteration of their typical lives related to in and out of school activities. Youth out-of-school time programs, such as 4-H, are essential ecological assets and their disruption during the pandemic may have a major impact on youth’s developmental pathways (Ettekal & Aganas, 2020). For many youth COVID-19 will be the defining issue of their lives and affect them in ways that will mark the course of their life-long development (Bartlett & Virette, 2020). As we emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic, it is imperative that programs, communities, and families that are involved in the lives of youth make a diligent effort to restore and rebuild opportunities that provide experiences to develop interpersonal life-skills. Hosting the Kentucky 4-H Teen Conference in June 2021 was an attempt to provide a typical cumulative experience for senior-level 4-H members. Due to COVID-19 capacity restrictions the conference was open to only those senior-level youth who participated throughout the program year in a Kentucky 4-H leadership board or the Kentucky 4-H Achievement Program.
208 youth representing 68 counties participated in the 2021 Kentucky 4-H Teen Conference. Youth reported that it was important to attend the conference this year because:
Youth reported how they benefited from Kentucky 4-H Teen Conference:
Attending 4-H Teen Conference at the University of Kentucky is a valuable experience for youth from across the Commonwealth:
Letcher County was able to attend and be part of teen conference with 2 State Teen Council Members, 2 delegates, and 1 agent. This was a much different experience then previous years at Teen Conference, but it was a welcoming experience after the year that we have had. All youth that attended from Letcher County felt safe and excited for the experience.
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