"Ecosystems of Youth Leadership Development: Pathways to New Programs" introduces new insights into youth leadership development, where the voices of youth who have been disaffected by previous programs are brought to the forefront. This is opposed to past studies where research is often grounded in understanding only the positive…

Not all Extension professionals enter the workplace with knowledge and experience in program development. Some may possess extensive expertise in their subject matter but need additional training in teaching-related competencies for adult or youth audiences. Even educators with extensive skill and experience benefit from thoughtful and intentional…

Youth arts programmes give young people access to different kinds of art skills, social networks and professional standard opportunities. This article explores a typology of youth arts from across five programmes in Denmark and England, examining through observations and interviews with staff and young people what kind of arts practices are…

Restorative Justice (RJ) models of diversion from the criminal justice system have been used successfully with adults and youth charged with minor offenses. Professionally mediated RJ conferences bring together the offender and the person(s) harmed to discuss the impact of their actions and develop a plan to restore community safety and make…

This case study describes youths' roles in meal packing events and food drives associated with 4-H and FFA organizations in Missouri. Findings suggest the idea of a local event often stemmed from a youth who had participated in a meal packing event on a state or national level. However, youth perceived that once they expressed their idea, the…

There have been many meaningful studies over the last quarter century that have explored how young people build critical consciousness, how mentors and other caring adults can support that process, and the benefits that young people experience when they build their sociopolitical understanding and work to make the world around them a better place.…

Mentoring is a series of collaborative activities and conversations between young people and older or more experienced persons (i.e., mentors) who are acting in a helping capacity to provide support that benefits one or more areas of the young person's development. This resource offers those who develop and implement mentoring services meaningful…

Pre-apprenticeship programs help youth and adults enter a Registered Apprenticeship program, further training, or the workforce. One of the challenges with starting and sustaining a pre apprenticeship program is bridging the gap between the business and educational leaders' understanding of the program. The bridge between the two sectors is a…

This article examines the limitations of developing youth programs through solely a human capital framework. While there is undoubtedly a strong connection between skills development and potential economic opportunity, our findings reveal that the story of youth who manage to navigate difficult economic environments is complex and nuanced. The…

Creative Youth Development (CYD) is a holistic approach to engaging young people through the arts and creativity to support them in thriving in all aspects of their lives. Young people consistently rank culminating events -- performances, exhibitions, youth summits, screenings of their films -- as a powerful motivator and key aspect of their…

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…

Volunteer engagement is critical to achieving the mission of volunteer organizations (Boone et al., 2002). Fogarty et al. (2009) found that 4-H volunteers are a mediating factor in achieving positive youth development outcomes and are responsible for teaching at least 50% of the life skills youth gain from participation in the organization. For…

We introduce a new experience design tool, an experience journey map, to assist youth professionals in planning engagement, immersion, and absorption activities. Experience journey maps are based on customer journey maps, which are widely used in business service design. This new approach highlights strategies for engendering deep structured…

For many years, those who work in the mentoring field have wondered how they can extend the impact of their programs beyond the benefits experienced by young people they serve. There has been an increasing desire within our field to harness the power of mentoring to enable the youth served in a program to not just grow individually, but to…

This dissertation examines a case of an international development initiative funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in the United States and implemented in North Macedonia. The specific initiative was a youth development program including a substantial career counseling component called the Macedonia Youth…