Dr. Ashurst has been the national co-chair for the Youth 

Experiencing Homelessness National Subcommittee since 

Fall 2018. This is 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.

Dr. Ashurst and Melissa Scheer at the University of Missouri 

co-chair the multi-state subcommittee, which included 

Extension personnel from 11 states that are conducting 

programming for youth who are experiencing or at high risk for 

experiencing homelessness. The subcommittee had 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 had a journal article accepted 

and published in the Journal of Youth Development 

(http://jyd.pitt.edu/ojs/jyd/article/view/2020-15-6-PA-3). They combined with the Youth 

Experiencing Poverty subcommittee as of April 2021 to co-

develop resources and trainings. The joint subcommittee now 

represents a 15-state group. They presented as an invited

panel for the CYFAR Professional Development Event in June 

2021 about their multi-state programming and how to 

effectively reach out to homeless and unstably housed youth 

through Extension programming. The joint subcommittees 

have been working on fact sheets that will be publicly available

for Extension staff to better able to reach out to and engage 

high poverty and unstably housed youth. The joint committees 

are also developing plans for training for the Extension System

on recruiting and programming for youth living in poverty.