Juntos Timeline
Dr. Andrew Behnke from Family and Consumer Science reached out to his colleague Cintia Aguilar to discuss outreach to the Latino community and the high dropout rate of Latino students in the state. Education became their outreach focus after a series of community surveys, and in 2007, Behnke and Aguilar piloted the High School Workshop Series. From this point on, the foundation of Juntos became family engagement. Organic and small-scale workshops took place in schools that welcomed the pilot workshop series. Juntos received a small grant that allowed the workshops to start in three rural North Carolina counties. In addition, youth clubs and summer youth programming began, thanks to support from the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. Diana Urieta joined the development team. During this period, the Department of Public Instruction and National 4-H Council funds allowed Juntos to establish the Juntos 4-H Clubs and Juntos Summer Programming (Academy) as program components. These components enabled the program to follow students throughout their high school years, with programming all year long. Oregon State University was the first Land-Grant University outside of North Carolina to imp lement Juntos as a primary program to engage Latinx families. Through OSU’s Open Campus initiative, distinctive partnerships with community colleges leveraged resources designed to add fidelity and impact in Oregon communities. Juntos OSU has a unique and successful program because it sits within University Outreach and Engagement. Dr. Scott Reed, the vice provost responsible for the division, observed, “By utilizing a proven curriculum developed at NCSU, we were able to accelerate the establishment of Juntos and immediately improve retention and graduation rates of participating Latinx youth .” Their sustainability vision for Juntos is one that all Juntos states are learning from today. In partnership with Hispanics In Philanthropy and local organizations with a similar vision to Juntos’ s, Juntos applied for a grant from the Lumina Foundation. This funding stream allows Juntos to provide training to and oversight of the Juntos family engagement component and to establish the final element of Juntos, Success Coaching and Mentoring. Research shows that helping eighth graders transition into high school is critical to reducing high school dropout rates. A partnership with Oklahoma and Iowa through CYFAR funds allowed for all four program components to be implemented, with four cohorts. Juntos was able to launch the middle school family workshop series. Respectfully, Oklahoma and Iowa parted ways to pursue evaluation methods and programming that best served their tenure and community. The National 4-H Council partnered with Juntos NC State in 2015 through New York Life Foundation funds to focus on serving Latino youth. Thanks to this partnership, Juntos 4- H started in New York City and San Antonio, TX, in 2015, followed by Florida in 2016, and in 2017 the last two states were added to this project, including a total of six counties in California and in Cook County, Illinois. As of summer 2021, all but Texas continue to serve Latino families through the Juntos program after funding ended. Idaho and North Carolina joined forces and received a joint CYFAR grant; other states have followed as they apply for CYFAR funding to start their own Juntos CYFAR projects. A new wave of states, including Nevada, Nebraska, Indiana, Colorado, Wisconsin, Washington, and Missouri, have joined the Juntos family and bring with them 4-H and Family and Consumer Science powerhouse professionals. They are committed to the mission of Juntos. Juntos 4-H provided them with the curriculum to take their efforts to the next level.
2006
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014 – 2017
2018 – 2021
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