What is 4-H?
As a part of the youth development program of Utah State University Cooperative Extension, 4-H is an informal, practical educational program for youth and is the nation’s largest Positive Youth Development Program. 4-H is where there's fun in learning and learning in fun! The 4-H Youth Development Program focuses on a learn-by-doing approach to enable youth to develop the knowledge, attitudes, and skills they need to become competent, caring, and contributing citizens of the world.
4-H is able to provide growth, leadership, and learning opportunities for youth throughout Salt Lake County. 4-H offers a large array of programs, projects, contests, and events. These programs are available through local 4-H clubs, 4-H Camps, and 4-H events both county-wide and throughout the state.
With the support of adult mentors, youth can select from a variety of hands-on project ideas to complete. 4-H programs are available for children in grades 3rd-12th. 4-H Cloverbud programs are available for children ages 5-7 (check with the county 4-H extension staff if Cloverbud programs are in your area).
Through America’s 110 land-grant universities and its Cooperative Extension System, 4-H reaches every corner of our nation—from urban neighborhoods to suburban schoolyards to rural farming communities. With a network of more than 6 million youth, 611,800 volunteers, 3,500 professionals, and more than 25 million alumni, 4-H helps shape youth to move our country and the world forward in ways that no other youth organization can.
- 4-H youth assume projects that are designed to fit their needs and abilities at different ages. They explore a variety of subjects from food to forestry, rockets and rabbits, and much, much more.
- 4-H gives kids and teens all sorts of opportunities to develop life skills, to practice them, and to refine and use them throughout their lifetime.
- 4-H teaches young people how to meet their needs for belonging, mastery, independence, and generosity in positive ways.
- 4-H youth work in a variety of settings including schools, day camps, overnight camps, afterschool, clubs, and other learning environments.
For more than 100 years, 4‑H has welcomed young people of all beliefs and backgrounds, giving kids a voice to express who they are and how they make their lives and communities better. Through life-changing 4‑H programs, nearly six million kids have taken on critical issues.
How is 4-H Making a Difference?
For more than a decade, preeminent youth development scholars, Drs. Richard M. Lerner and Jacqueline V. Lerner, and the team at the Institute for Applied Research in Youth Development at Tufts University, Medford, MA, partnered with faculty at America’s land-grant universities to conduct this groundbreaking research.
The first-of-its-kind research defined and measured positive youth development. The result is a model that is driving new thinking and approaches to youth development around the world.
The research is helping families, schools, communities, and youth programs develop strategies to support children and adolescents. Effective youth development programs like 4-H are putting the research to work by focusing on three important areas:
- Positive and sustained relationships between youth and adults
- Activities that build important life skills
- Opportunities for youth to use these skills as participants and leaders in valued community activities
The 4-H Study of Positive Youth Development is a longitudinal study that began in 2002 and was repeated annually for eight years, surveying more than 7,000 adolescents from diverse backgrounds across 42 U.S. states.
The first wave of research began with fifth graders during the 2002-2003 school year and ended with twelfth graders (Wave eight) in 2010. More recently, the Tufts research team examined all eight waves of data and conducted new and more rigorous analyses in order to produce the latest comprehensive report of findings. The new report, while sometimes diverging from earlier results, provides powerful evidence of the impact of 4-H participation throughout Grades 5-12.
“The potential for change is a core strength of all youth – a strength that can be built upon. This strength is cause for optimism for it means we can positively influence the life paths of all children.“---Lerner et al., 2013