The 4-H Military Partnership Project received one of two Excellence in Engagement Awards at Kansas State University at an All-University Awards ceremony on May 1st. This award recognizes faculty initiatives that demonstrate innovative and/or sustained efforts in university/community engagement positively impacting both university and community partners. We were also asked to submit to the regional W.K. Kellogg Foundation Community Engagement Scholarship Award and the national C. Peter Magrath Community Engagement Scholarship Award. The application has been submitted and we’ll know about the regional award by May 31. If we receive the regional award, a 2 minute video will be produced over the summer and the national winner is selected in the fall.
All of the work in putting these award applications together lead me on a path of looking back over the many years of the partnership and so I thought I’d share some of the history with you since many of you have joined the project in more recent years. Your acceptance and embracing of this military work for youth has always inspired me. When new Liaisons would come to their first 4-H Military Partnership meeting, there was sometimes a deer in the headlights look but before long that turned into passion for working with military youth and connecting with our engaged community of military liaisons. I’ll try not to bore you but just give some of the highlights along the way and share some of the information I included in the award application.
In 1995, Kansas State University, with Marcia McFarland as the Project Director, received funding from Army Child and Youth Services through USDA to develop a curriculum and training for Army child and youth program staff on youth development. That curriculum was Moving Ahead: Preparing the Youth Development Professional. In 2000, I became involved as the Project Director when Marcia announced her retirement. It was at that time, the connections to 4-H started growing. M.-A. Lucas, who was Chief of Army CYS had been a 4-H member and thought that 4-H could enhance Army youth programs. I remember her sharing some of her 4-H memorabilia with us at one of the first 4-H Club conferences we had as precursors to 4-H 101. It was quickly determined that we would need to help Army youth program staff understand what 4-H is and how they would implement 4-H on installations. A design team was brought together to develop 4-H 101. We trained all of the Army regions in 2002-2003 by bringing together the Army youth program staff and the 4-H educator or 4-H Army Liaison. Sherri Wright was the national program leader working with the military project at the time. She quickly saw the need to have a liaison in every state and that is truly what gave the 4-H Military Partnership the infrastructure to be as successful as we have been. We also started the 4-H club grants to the states at this time with funding from USDA and Army.
In 2004, Air Force joined the partnership and the Liaisons became 4-H Military Liaisons with grants now going to states with Army and Air Force installations. We had 4-H 101 trainings regionally for Air Force that also brought together military staff and Extension 4-H professionals.
Navy joined the partnership in 2008 and became part of the 4-H club grant program to the states. Rae Oldham was on assignment to the Navy when they started and she and I traveled to each of the Navy regions for 4-H 101 training. Navy was instrumental in moving us forward by funding the development of 4-H 101 Online. Steve McKinley at Purdue took on that project and it’s still being used today.
It was in 2004 that Army saw the need to support geographically dispersed youth of National Guard and Reserve service members and so began the journey of developing the OMK project. Most of you were around during the OMK era but for those that weren’t, OMK provided predictable services and high quality educational, recreational, and enrichment programs to geographically dispersed children, youth and families of National Guard and Reserve by focusing on building state and local communities of support. Extension professionals educated communities about military families living in their own backyards and engaged them in supporting the families. Extension staff partnered with Army to develop the national Ready, Set, Go! (RSG) training curriculum which helped America’s communities understand the impact of deployment on children, youth and families of geographically dispersed service members. We conducted around 12-15 RSG trainings with teams from the states. I think we all grieved when the OMK program was no longer funded. It helped bring a stronger infrastructure to the 4-H and military partnerships.
During the OMK years, K-State was managing all of the sub-awards for the 4-H Military Partnership club grants as well as all of the OMK state grants and camp grants. Michelle Perez joined the KSU team in 2007 and Matt McMahan in 2008. Carol Fink started about 2010, first with Navy and then at KSU to support the CYFAR 4-H Military Partnership projects such as evaluation and reporting, Common Measures, and professional development.
Over the past few years, Air Force and Navy have also supported camps for military youth as part of the overall partnership. We hope to continue these as long as funding is available to support them.
And now back to the award – As part of the award application there was space to include support letters and other scholarship activities. Many of you may not know that we have 2 Liaisons who have completed their doctorates having used their military work in their dissertations. Candi Dierenfield – The Impacts of a Mother’s Deployment on Military Children: A Narrative Inquiry, and Casey Mull – Boundary-spanning behaviors of individuals engaged with the U.S. military community. We also have journal articles related to the partnership written by Casey and Theresa Ferrari, and countless others of you have written newsletters and articles, produced videos and webinars, written curriculum, and given dozens of presentations or trainings directly related to your work with the military.
Over 30 pieces of curriculum have been written for the 4-H Military Partnership and OMK projects – a collaboration of Extension and military. The curricula is posted on the 4-H Military Partnership website. Each year we have an annual report for the project and an annual meeting for Liaisons, Military Partners, and other military groups that would like to join us.
We’ve accomplished great things in the 22 years since KSU started with the youth development curriculum in 1995. This engaged community of military liaisons is a highlight of this partnership and it leads to the engaged work that you do with military child and youth program staff – all in support of military youth. We should be proud of what we’ve done. As one youth said: “My 4-H club gave me pride and confidence in myself and made me feel as if I could make a difference in other people’s lives as well as my own.”
I quote the last paragraph of the abstract submitted for the award as a summary:
“Two prodigious and diverse organizational systems, Extension and the Military, benefit from this important work with a common mission of positive youth development. The partnership allows for the scholarly development of curriculum, professional development for Extension and military staff, and collaborative 4-H programs for military youth. Extension personnel expanded and refined their expertise in engaging with military youth, families, and military culture. Military youth gain important life skills by participating in 4-H on installations wherever they live. Military service members can focus on mission readiness knowing their children are in quality programs such as 4-H.”
Thank you to each and every one of you for what you do for military youth and families and for being engaged and supportive of the 4-H Military Partnership.
Marlene VerBrugge
4-H Military Partnership Project Director