A team from Utah State University has developed a program to help youth build confidence in their ability to survive adverse childhood experiences and thrive in any circumstance, through activities that push them out of their comfort zone in a safe and supportive environment. This publication describes what the team learned as they created the program and why this kind of youth development is so important. The publication is excerpted from the New Technologies for Ag Extension 2022-2023 Yearbook, which documents dozens of projects funded through the New Technologies for Ag Extension (NTAE) program. NTAE is a cooperative agreement between USDA NIFA, Oklahoma State University, and the Extension Foundation. The goal of the New Technologies for Ag Extension (NTAE) grant is to incubate, accelerate, and expand promising work that will increase the impact of the Cooperative Extension System (CES) in the communities it serves, and provide models that can be adopted or adapted by Extension teams across the nation. This work is supported by New Technologies for Agriculture Extension grant no. 2020-41595-30123 from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the view of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Grant projects improve human, environmental, and community health.
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Welcome. “They Can Do Hard Things,”is a publication of the New Technologies for Ag Extension (NTAE) program. This publication celebrates the accom- plishments of a team at Utah State University Extension, which received funding for this project in 2022-2023. NTAE is a grant program generously supported by the USDA-National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) and administered through a partnership between Oklahoma State University and the Extension Foundation (EXF). The primary objective of NTAE is to provide financial assistance to competitively selected Extension programs that align with the strategic goal and priority program areas of the USDA and the Extension Com- mittee on Organization and Policy (ECOP). Through this support, NTAE helps teams catalyze, accelerate, and expand their work in their respective fields. Since its inception in 2019, the NTAE program has successfully funded and supported a total of 72 projects and leaders. This includes collaborations with all Regional Rural Development Centers (RRDCs) and ECOP Program Action Teams (PATs). Selected programs receive support for a period of one year. The project leader and their team are provided with invaluable mentoring from a team of catalysts, key infor- mants, and coaches from the EXF. This customized and innovative support model assists teams in exploring new possibilities, enhancing the intended impact of their projects, and sharing their work with a national audience. Additionally, each team receives additional resources and support to create materials and experiences that speed the development of their projects and bring about desired changes. The project showcased in this publication reflects the diversity and breadth of Extension disciplinary work and programming. In this publication, you will gain deeper insights into this exciting project, including the lessons learned, the project’s significance for Extension in a broader context, and what lies ahead for the team.
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Editorial Staff Julie Halverson Dr. Rose Hayden-Smith Heather Martin Design & Production Dr. Rose Hayden-Smith Ellen P. Krugel Heather Martin
PROJECT TEAM
1. BE INSPIRED . Use our model to create a youth empowerment program in your state or region.
Lisa Schainker Extension Assistant Professor, Utah State University Christina Pay Extension Assistant Professor, Utah State University Melanie Dabb Extension Assistant Professor, Utah State University Andrea Schmutz Extension Assistant Professor, Utah State University Eva Timothy Extension Assistant Professor, Utah State University Cindy Jenkins Extension Assistant Professor, Utah State University Jared Hawkins Extension Assistant Professor, Utah State University Catherine Hansen Extension Assistant Professor, Utah State University
© Extension Foundation Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommer- cial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). Published by Extension Foundation. Citations for this publication may be made using the following: Kansas City: Extension Foundation (2022). They Can Do Hard Things (1st ed). ISBN: 978-1-955687-30-0. This work, ISBN 978-1-955687-30-0, is supported by New Technologies for Agriculture Extension grant no. 2020- 41595-30123 from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the view of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
2. ADVOCATE. Show this publication to your
Extension Director and talk about how to use it to enhance your institution’s public outreach. 3. SHARE. Share this publication with potential community partners who could help you scale your program. 4. GIVE FEEDBACK. Did this publication inform your Extension work? Share what you’ve
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THEY
Childhood trauma may be one of the most common denominators among us in this country.
ccording to a recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey, nearly six in
experiential activities—such as a ropes course and paddle boarding—that involved safe and healthy risk-taking. The USU team was encouraged by survey results from camp participants, 80% of whom said that they enjoyed the program, and 90% of whom said they would recommend the camp to other youth. But because such activities may not be possible in all locations, the team has created a set of “challenge activities” that require very little or no equip- ment. These activities will be made available to after-school providers who can implement them with elementary- and middle school-aged youth from all backgrounds. We sat down with Dr. Schainker to learn more about the program and the team’s experience with NTAE. Why did you apply for an NTAE grant? We applied because our team was ready to take the next steps toward adapting our challenge activities to be deliv- ered in an after school setting. We thought that the guid- ance and coaching available through NTAE would help us move it forward more quickly. One of the biggest ways NTAE has helped us is in creating a project timeline. The monthly meetings with our mentor and project coordinator help to make sure we are meeting our project benchmarks. We have also engaged in training on time management with the leadership specialist. The marketing and writing services have been very beneficial for our team as we move toward creating and preparing to disseminate our final product.
10 adults across 25 states report having had at least one type of adverse childhood experience (ACE) (e.g., exposure to physical abuse, family instability, violence, parental substance abuse, or mental health problems) before they were 18. One in six reported having four or more ACEs. Resilience, or the ability to bounce back from life’s diffi- culties, is a powerful tool for coping with ACEs and other challenges. While we may not be able to prevent ACEs, we can prepare youth to deal with them by helping them develop resilience. A team from Utah State University (USU) is doing just that: helping youth build confidence in their ability to survive and thrive in any circumstance, through activities that push them out of their comfort zone in a safe and supportive environment.
DO HARD THINGS
Program helps youth build confidence to persist through fear, discomfort.
“We know that confidence can start to wane as youth move into the teen years,” says Dr. Lisa Schainker, an Extension Assistant Professor at USU and the project team lead. “Our team believes that we need to teach youth how to believe in themselves and to become resilient. We want youth to learn that they can do hard things—that they can push through discomfort and feel stronger knowing that they stuck with something even when it felt difficult.” The USU Extension team developed a confidence-building curriculum that was piloted at a summer camp in 2021; the program included six lessons, as well as “high adventure”
Have you done anything surprising this year?
We developed an innovative approach for conducting an anonymous peer review process, which enabled everyone to provide feedback in a safe and open way. It also al- lowed our team members to review each other’s proposed activities against a standardized set of measures in order to make apples-to-apples comparisons of the activities. ➤
Is your program a model that Extension teams at other LGUs could adopt/adapt? Yes. Our goal is to create an imple- mentation guide with lessons and ac- tivities that have been pilot tested and shown to produce positive effects on indicators of youth confidence. We think that Extension educators and afterschool providers in other states will be able to incorporate this in their work without much adaptation. I also think that the peer review pro- cess we’ve developed for our project could be adopted by other Extension teams because it isn’t connected to a specific programming area. Team members were asked to use a very systematic and standardized method to review each other’s activity ideas. This level of rigor isn’t common during the program development phase, but we believe that in order to get the best end product, it’s important to have your peers provide feedback and raise questions about your work. This is especially critical when each team member is developing one lesson that is part of a multi-lesson curriculum and the goal is for all of the activities to fit together seamlessly.
You have an interesting model that’s curating existing content. What are you learning about the advantages and challenges of that approach? Some of the activities are based on ones commonly used with youth groups; some are newly developed for this project. Many of our activ- ities may be familiar to educators and youth. The advantage of using existing activities is that we know they can be implemented in an after school setting. Our approach involves putting a unique spin on the activity by creating learning content around it that specifically relates to building confidence, cop- ing with challenges, and applying the lessons to real life. As we create new activities specif- ically for this project, we have to keep in mind that no one has ever tried them with a group of youth. This is why we designed the project to incorporate pilot testing, which serves two purposes: to assess the feasibility of implementation and to enable us to fine-tune the activi- ties to ensure that youth have the optimal experience when engaging in them. If the activities are too easy, they won’t provide the experience that will create meaningful impact. If they are too hard, it could result in the youth feeling a sense of failure. Balance is key.
How do you blend disparate activities so that they feel cohesive? The main way we are doing this is by creating a standardized tem- plate for our lessons so that each lesson will include learning content and instructions for how facilita- tors should teach the content and implement the challenge activity. I will serve as the editor and put everything together into one final implementation guide in a way that flows with a cohesive voice. The hope is that no one will be able to tell that different people developed each activity. Why is positive youth devel- opment so important? If we want to help communities thrive now and in the future, we have to invest in our youth by preparing them to be leaders, to believe in themselves, and to have a growth mindset. Giving youth positive experiences and allowing them to see that they can over- come things they may have thought impossible can go a long way toward building their resilience. We may even be able to help youth who have experienced ACEs to learn the coping and problem-solv- ing skills that we know are critical for preventing risky behaviors. ■
The USU Extension team is looking for after-school sites that are interested in partnering to develop this con- fidence-building curriculum. Contact Dr. Lisa Schainker lisa.schainker@usu.edu
Why does this project inspire you?
“I am so proud to have the opportunity to mentor this team. Helping youth build resilience is so import- ant in a society that can confront them with so many challenges. This team is creating a unique experience that will engage youth in learning and building these skills. Kudos to Lisa and her team for engaging in this criti- cally-important work!”
Our Extension leadership team has definitely emphasized the importance of positive youth development, youth mental health, and helping youth develop resilience-building skills. Our team recognized that there was not a curriculum out there that com- bined lessons along with challenge activities that helped push youth out of their comfort zones. We are lucky to have leadership that supports us in finding ways to use our professional expertise along with following our passions to create impactful programs for the communities that we serve. Our ultimate goal is to help youth find their strengths and learn that persever- ance pays off. Providing youth with opportunities to try new things, learn how to deal with the unexpected, and think about who they really are is central to our work. The most exciting aspect of this project is that we are taking what we learned from our camp and making it widely available to youth across the state of Utah, and hopefully one day, across the country.
YES THEY
—Chuck Hibberd, NTAE Catalyst
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