Understanding and identifying the professional development needs of 4-H youth development professionals should be the first step in developing the Extension workforce. However, 4-H professionals find it challenging to use the Professional, Research, Knowledge and Competencies (PRKC), which consists of 348 unique competency items, to guide…

University of Idaho Extension 4-H professionals have learned to work with volunteers in new ways to expand capacity and continue to build the quality of the 4-H program in Idaho. This article identifies how defining new position descriptions for volunteer facilitation coaches addressed two program needs, expanded capacity, and provided a higher…

We explain in this article the need for board training in rural America irrespective of industry or government sector. We discuss how an assessment of training needs has led to the launch of a new project called the National Board Basics Curriculum (NBBC) project. In this project, we have identified four key core competencies that every board…