MSU Extension 4-H Volunteering & Mentoring

He Spark Spark big dreams and future careers, and I'm going to let our two presenters, Laurie and Kathy give a quick introduction. Sure. Hi, everyone. I'm Lurie Reveto. I'm an extension educator based in Wayne County. My pronouns are she her and hers. I'm on the career Exploration and Workforce Prep team. So Kathy and I are both on that team, and we get to do a lot of cool work around career development, workforce readiness, money management renship, with our young people and help support other adults who are doing that same work. Hello, everyone. Kathy Jamison. I'm in McComb County, so just about 20 miles north of Laurie, and we've been on this team for quite a while since what 2010, I think is when they've formed. So super excited that you're here, and we're excited to deliver this program. So MS extension fully believes in the principles of diversity equine inclusion. We know that human differences enrich our lives, work in community. We embrace our responsibility to be a resource for all and are committed to providing programs to all segments of the community. It's also important to understand the longstanding history and legacy of colonialism has brought us all to reside on the land and to seek and understanding our place within that history, the land acknowledgment on the screen is one step in that process. This has been part of a Webinar series that we have been doing in 2023 and 24. We have one more topic left in 2024 on November 21, Pass the Development one oh one, building strong relationships through every stage. In addition to that topic coming up, We also have all the recordings from all the past topics are located on the website that I have just put into the chat. And then in December, we will be releasing the topics that will be done in the winter spring of 2025. So be on the lookout for those topics. They will again be offered at noon and 7:00 P.M. Each day. Okay. Here's our agenda. We're going to start with a little ice breaker. And then we're going to talk about careers in different sparks and how that is connecting to thriving youth and using youth voice, as well as we will share two career exploration theories. In simple ways you can add career exploration to your club or your group. We will provide a lot of resources that you can utilize and you can always reach out to Laurie and I. We have additional resources as well, and ways that you can say connected with us. Then it's really about an opportunity to learn and share together. So to identify what your ideas are, what your challenges are, and to really just have a conversation. Then lastly, very excited, we are going to give away two prizes today, but you must be present to win all way to the end. So Christine's writing your names down, and we're going to do a little wheel and be fun, and it's a really cool prize. So stick around. Okay. We're going to start with the ice breaker. And what we're going to do is we're going to take us back to our childhood. So T back and think about what kind of experiences did you have as a young person that had an influence on you, that might have influenced your career choice or helped you determine what you wanted to do in the future, or maybe even helped you determine what you did not want to do. Absolutely not. I'm not doing this because of an experience that you had as a child. Feel free to share that in chat. We have a small group, I guess you could, we don't want them to unmute. We just want chat. Okay. Music teacher in fourth grade. Nice. Anybody else? I know I will share. As a young child, I taught the whole neighborhood. I was just destined to teach and I just loved it. Okay four HR did. Somebody in your extension coordinator influenced you. A teacher from third grade. So what did they do? Any is Yeah. Any experiences. I know there's a lot of important people in our life that influence us. But was there a moment that they did, that maybe they allowed you to do something. I was always playing school with my siblings or the children I babysit. Okay, Kristine. They saw something in me I did not know about myself. Okay. Awesome. That's very cool. F H camp was one of the many opportunities. Show that they loved their work. Okay. So you were able to see their passion. Nice. And passion can be contagious, sometimes. It at least excites people into maybe exploring more. Well, thank you all for sharing. This is great. Yeah, we're going to keep on that path. Looking at the National F H initiative that is the focus moving forward for National FH called Bond Ready. This also helps you reflect a little bit on our childhood and those experiences as a young person that help us build those skills and prepare for life on our own. So we'll watch this little video. Remember when you were a kid, discovering all you can do, while learning to love who you are, finding your spark and igniting passion in others, stepping into your independence, but realizing you don't have to do it alone. Dealing with the pressures of the world, while finding a way through the storm. These moments haven't changed, but the world has, and it's coming at us faster than ever. Forge has helped millions of you pave a path forward. We're ready to inspire millions more to do the same. Through programs that are proven to work. We're building a generation that's beyond ready. Ready to lead, Ready to serve, ready to build, ready to conquer. More youth, more community, more ready. So the cool part about this initiative is that we know that four HH has this impact in our young people's lives. Four Hs when compared to their peers are two times more likely to have the goal of being a leader. They're three times more likely to participate in community service. There are two times more likely to report living life with intentionality and purpose. And when we think about beyond ready, it is about being ready for careers, but it's also about being ready for whatever life has to offer. The road ahead can be challenging, but we also know that four ages are succeeding and can succeed. They're asking for this type of information. They're asking for support to be ready for the future. We also know 85% of jobs in 2030 are not yet created. The jobs that will exist in the future aren't jobs that even exist now. What we have to think about as Those caring adults in our young people's lives is helping them be ready for whatever the world is going to offer, bring, or need in the future. That's a framework of what we're sharing today is some strategies and discussion around that. But know that there isn't a certain path that young people are necessarily going to take. And we are those guides and facilitators along that path. When we think about thriving, we do have an opportunity to work with young people in a lot of non formal settings, which really is the fantastic part of fourH, is that we can provide those spaces where young people can belong, matter and explore their personal spark. That personal spark may or may not become a career, but it might be the thing that also helps them have that passion in life or find those ways to relax or be grounded in the world. The relationships also that you have with young people as staff or volunteers, really helps them with skill development, engagement, and that belonging that makes the four H program so impactful. We're as a program able to provide the space where young people can dream, achieve, and thrive in a changing world, and that's what we're helping young people do. When we think about Sparks and the thriving model, sparks are those internal strengths and someone that are good, useful, provide purpose in life. They're going to give youth joy and energy. The sparks may be passions, like I said, that become a career, or again, it just is something that could provide them energy along their life path. And some of you mentioned earlier, when you talked about those experiences and people in your life, That helped you explore sparks in your world. Volunteers and caring adults can help you figure out what their spark might be or consider what brings them joy. We're looking for those things that we see their eyes light up, we see them speak excitedly and proudly about something. Those are the things that we are able to help them learn more about and develop as skills and as interests. Career exploration, it's best when youth voice is the focus. Think of youth voice in this realm as an op is providing opportunities for youth to direct to lead and organize their own career exploration. In order to do this, what you want to do is you want to ask the youth what careers they want to learn about, and then discuss how you can support them. I'm going to give you an example. Let's say the youth in your club or your group are interested in learning more about agricultural careers. And they want to have a guest speaker come in to maybe talk about that. So rather than you organizing it and getting the guest speaker, give them an opportunity to organize it. Discuss who they might want to invite, so get their feedback, let them use their voice. Maybe they know some people that might be a good speaker. Ask them how they should invite the person? Do they want should we e mail this person? Should we call them? Should we text them? How do we want to communicate with this person to invite them? Then have them practice. That's going to give them a lot of good practice to write an e mail or to practice making a phone call or texting somebody? Then have the youth identify, what are some questions that they might want to ask? This person. What do they want to learn about? That's all examples of youth voice. Then together, they can together or individual, write a thank you letter for this person. This is an example of informational interviewing. These are all the steps that would have to take place if somebody was going to do an informational interview. You could do informational interviewing as a group events where you have a speaker come in. You could have it done in a panel setting, where you have a number of speakers and the kids ask questions. Or it's a one on one where a young person makes contact with a professional and they have a conversation either by the phone or through video or in person. About a career they're interested in. But in all of in this example, the youth is learning how to make those steps and learning how to make those connections. You're giving them the power and the skills to do that, rather than you doing it for them. So organizing it so that the whole group can be involved. You're then building those skills and giving them an opportunity to explore what they're interested in. So we have some great resources on informational interviewing. I think Kristine's going to put them in the chat and we'll also come out in the e mail as well. So another thing we want to talk about is there's two theories career exploration. And we're going to show a short video on that and we'll discuss. So do you push that? Yeah. You might be feeling nervous about picking a college program, and that's normal. It's a big decision. But it's also possible you're nervous because you aren't quite ready to pick a program. This video is going to describe two important career development concepts. This will help take some of the pressure off and disprove any misconceptions you might have. Specifically, the idea that you need to decide right now what you're going to do for your entire life. First off, let's break down Donald Supers career development model. There are five stages to this model, but the one we're going to look at is exploration. This stage usually occurs between the ages of 15 and 24. Right around the time you're starting to really think about your future. Uncertainty is extremely common at this point. Don't worry if you're feeling a bit directionless or questioning what lies ahead. In the exploration stage, it's important to do just that. Explore. Let your interests, questions, and curiosities guide you. Take a class, volunteer, or shadow workers in different fields. Maybe you'll love cooking, building, or working with kids, but you won't know until you try. After you've had a chance to dabble in a few different areas, you'll become more self aware, which is to say, you'll get a stronger idea of what you want to do. The second concept that may help you relax of it is John rumbles planned happenstance. Despite what you see in the media or expectations you might feel are being placed on you. Career paths are not a straight line. These days, relatively few people train for a job, get that job, and then work in that field until retirement. In this sense, uncertainty is actually a gift. It allows you to be open and flexible, embracing new opportunities as they arise. The fact is you could do everything right and still find yourself switching careers due to unpredictable shifts in the labor market, like technological advances. We live in a changing world, and managing career shifts is just a fact of professional life now. This might sound scary, but when you don't have a set path, it's easy to say yes, to exciting new opportunities as they come up. Planned happenstance ultimately is about welcoming the unexpected. So embrace your uncertainty and enjoy the exploration process. You're not on anyone's timeline but your own, so really get a feel for different career options. Figure out what you enjoy and take it from there. Okay. So how does knowing these two career exploration theories help you in working with youth as they may consider career paths? Share in the chat. S in the chat. No one right path. Exactly. A lot of young people they might feel pressured that they have to know what they want to do as soon as they get out of high school and take those steps. And it's okay to change. Yes. So knowing that in that you don't necessarily know at a young age, because the whole point of this age, the 16 to 24. I think nowadays that might even be extended to a higher number. It's about per exploration. It's really about finding out and discovering themselves. What do they like? What are they interested in? What don't they like? It's really about the exploration and knowing that it's okay that you don't know, and it's not like in the 50s, people had one job and they stayed with that job. You know, till they retired. That's very unusual. I mean, it still happens, especially if you work for extension, right? It still does happen, but it's not as frequent. That's for sure. And I will say to the thing that's helpful for me about that video and the theories is that Sometimes we get to help provide that permission to them that it's okay not to know, because there can be that pressure. The video mentions the pressure from all the places in the world to know, to have the answers, so I think sometimes we're able to provide that framework as four H professionals and volunteers that it's okay not to know. Let's explore. Let's figure this out. You're okay. Yeah, and even sharing your own path, because your path might have been all over the place, you know, and even if it wasn't, that's okay. Just giving them exposure to different paths is what's important. So other things that ideally, we want you to find something that they love, something that pays well, as well as something that they're good at. If you look at that little graphic, it's the center where they all cross. That's where they're going to be most satisfied and happy is if you find something that you love. If you find something that you love, but you're not good at it, you might be and it doesn't pay well, you might be happy but poor, ultimately that will be a strain on you. Or if you find something that pays well, but you're not good at it, even though you love, then that might just be a dream. It's really helpful to ask you questions to have them think on the areas of careers. This could be done on an individual level or giving an opportunity for them to reflect and they can reflect through journaling through group discussions, and as part of other club activities. And knowing that answers may change over time, and that's okay and encouraged as you determine what matters most to them. You could ask, by asking those kids, what are you interested in? Because you're not only asking what their interests are, you're showing interest in them. And, what are you good at? What are some of your skills? That's a tough one for young people because sometimes they they don't have the confidence to identify things that they're good at. So there's so many other questions. But what are some other questions that you might want to ask to help them with that career exploration process? I like to understand non negotiables as well. What sacrifices are you willing to make or not? That's a great. Everything in life is a trade off. Absolutely Tyne. It's a great great discussion on opportunity cost, right? Path we take W there's something else that we might not have or get with that. And what are we comfortable with? What are we going to be able to sit with with those choices? Exactly. Yeah. So are there other questions that people might have that you might be able to ask kids to help them start thinking about careers? Where do you want to live? Nice. That's a big one. That's a great one list. Hopefully, they'll choose Michigan, but, you know, maybe not. Getting them think about that, and then having them research what it's like to live in those locations, how can we find out more? Would you would you rather questions? Oh, k. Nice. We're going to talk. We're going to do that. Okay. That's great t. Okay. Like you said, a job you love or money. Yes. Yeah, that's a would you rather, make $120,000 in a job that you don't like or $40,000 in a job that you love? Work on your own or part of a team. Love it. Yeah. Great. I always like to ask, you know, what do you want to learn more about? You know, because there's so many things to learn about. What hobbies do you have? Nice Latoya? Okay. Favorite Object in school is a good one, too. Yeah. How much training do you see yourself having, you know, you know, how long do you want to go to school? Cause some people school is not for everybody. And some jobs are going to require more schooling than others. How many hats? How many different hats or consistency? Okay. Cool. Nice. We're going to talk a little bit about values. To often people don't enjoy what they do. Often people are unhappy with their jobs because they didn't take the time to really understand what is important to them or worth doing. Values are the beliefs about what is important or desirable. When your values line up with how you live and work, you tend to be more satisfied and competent, think about work is more than a way just to earn money. It's also a way to achieve personal satisfaction and happiness. Choosing a career needs to fit a young person's values just as their shoes fit their feet, or their gloves fit their hands. On the screen, Also think about your club or your group. Let's consider the club being a space similar to our works workplace. You know what values are important to the club members or the volunteers? And are they different or the same and having that conversation and identifying what values are important to its members can make a club richer and the young people happier. If they're consistent, also help the youth explore what is important to them when they join the workforce because they're going to be similar. Thinking about your own club, Are there certain values that you want to make sure to have demonstrated. Some activities for the young people to explore their values as you could have all of these different words. And this is not a comprehensive list, but that could be one activity. You can have this list. What are some other values that are important to you? Identifying additional values. You could ask you what values are important to them and the club? And explore which ones are must have. We have to have this value. This is so important. What are some that are nice to have? Which ones are okay not to have and which ones are not needed or you don't want and discuss why and how this relates to what they might value in a place to. Or you could even have them rank order these. What's the most important to the least important? There's online assessments you could share with the kids, or you could do a card sort. I've had this where I put these words on cards and they had to sort them. Or you could put them along the wall and you could talk about what each of them means because that's key. They need to know what these words mean in the workplace as well in the club setting. So there's some tools for you. That's the assessment tool and then an article. Yeah. And another amazing resource is the build your future curriculum that was Michigan four H created and is a four H curriculum that you can purchase from the four H Mall or shop. So there's a variety of activities in this curriculum. If you are a four H volunteer, I encourage you to check with your local extension office, the four H staff person, Probably we'll have a copy available that you can use and borrow, so I encourage that. Also, this could be a prize or giveaway for today. So heads up on that. There are a variety of great activities in this curriculum that help with career exploration and workforce readiness and skill building as a whole, as we've been talking about. The two that really relate with career exploration are those two top ones that are listed on their, skills choices, careers and making career connections that have a lot to do with that exploration process. There is a career assessment tool in the curriculum, so a pen and paper career assessment tool where young people make choices. It's like one of those quizzes that you might do online, and then you end up getting the results and see where you land. The virtual assessments that Kristine shared in the chat, and that will come as resources as well are another option. But this is a pen and paper one so that when you're working with a group of young people and might not have access to the technology, it's a good one to do and begin that discussion. There is an activity using masks so that they're exploring the skills that they have and how that translates into sharing those skills with networking, interviewing, looking for career paths, the things that they're gaining from the experiences that they have. And the making career connections, one really looks at those other components of exploring careers, informational interviewing that Cathy mentioned earlier, job shadowing, doing research, really digging into careers. It provides resources on where young people can look at to do research on careers, there's a lot of resources out there. And then the other activities in build your future really help with that skill building, whether it's setting up goals, whether it's building information, building or sharing information on how they can fund their post secondary education, create a portfolio, entrepreneurship as a career path, There's pieces on interviewing, which, of course, we know has wide wide breadth of benefits, whether it be for a job interview or for awards or a scholarship or a volunteer experience. So lots of great resources within the Build your future curriculum, and it is our giveaway for today. So stick with us to potentially win that. I want to share a few other simple career expiration strategies? Some of these all shared in the check? Because again, we want to have a space for discussion and other idea sharing. But I think Tyrene shared the would you rather or this or that option? So this is a really good one to do with a group of young people having them explore those things that they value and what's important to them. So would you rather work in a team or work individually? Would you rather work outside or indoors? Would you rather work In the morning or in the evening hours. Having them explore some of those values, same idea with this or that, so it's making some of those choices and having that pressure, I guess, to think about what is important and what the values are. We mentioned some career and skill assessments that are great for young people to try out. King every time that I share one of those that it is not a requirement or a pressure that you need to do whatever that skill assessment or career assessment shares as ideas. It's just a starting point. It's just something to get you thinking. You could have interests in a totally different area, or there could be a different twist to what that assessment shares. It's just a tool to help young people start that exploration process or doing some of that research. We mentioned earlier about sharing how you ended up in a career path. This is a really great one to have different staff and volunteers share their career path and how they ended up where they have in their life because we know that it isn't linear. And so hearing other people share about how we started earlier today, what experiences, what type of things helped you see that something would work and something wouldn't work for you, For me, I've never been a very athletic person, and so I knew early on that I was not going to be a good fit for any kind of career path like for instance, the army. I was always perplexed while they were trying to recruit me because I would not be a good fit there for numerous reasons. Again, having that discussion about what we're good at, what we enjoy, and how that could be a path, and how we got that information to make some of those decisions. Definitely encourage that exploration. We shared that those two career theories, and that can be really helpful with that permission, encourage networking, encourage building relationships with different adults and finding out about their career path, trying new things, going outside of their comfort zone to maybe experience something new. That includes community service. Which really lets them explore different skills that they can build, get that hands on experience developing skills. We know, like we said earlier, that the jobs that will exist in the future aren't necessarily jobs that are existing now. So it's less about the specific career and more about the skills that we're developing, and community service really helps with that. Take those field trips to various places where youth can learn about career path, encourage that informational interviewing or panels that can come share at club meetings or group events. And then really help you connect their four H experience with jobs with the life skills that they can utilize. That mask activity I mentioned earlier, in build your future is a good one for that because it's helping young people see how the things that they do are great, but really what's important about that is what they're learning from that. So that reflection apply part of our experiential learning model, Why is this important? What have I learned from this? How will this help me in the future? Those skills are what's really, really important for young people to be understanding about themselves when they're looking at being beyond ready for the future. In a little bit, we're going to have you share some of your ideas. Hopefully this prompted a little bit of ideas in your head, but we do have a lot of resources. There is a huge resource list. Some of these have been shared in the chat today. Christine will send an e mail out with a lot of these resources. Some of them are some articles that have some great content in them. There's a variety of curriculum including Build your Future that we mentioned just a little bit ago. But those other curriculum that are listed on the page are relevant for through four H or through shot four H. You can see from the links there and there's ones that are geared more towards younger youth, but a lot of them are geared towards our middle and high school age youth as they're exploring careers. Some great activities that Kathy and I would recommend from many of them. If you have any specific questions, we can try to help answer those Today or not today, send us an e mail so we can do some digging and follow up. Then, of course, there's a lot of web based resources as well, whether the occupational outlook handbook, which allows young people to really research careers, the Spartan career handbook, which really helps young people with some of those workforce readiness skills as well, things like career one stop, reality check. Provide some of that information on those skills, where they might want to live in the future, the values that are important to them. So a lot of great resources that you can incorporate individually or in a group for career readiness. Kathy, anything you want to add? Well, it's not comprehensive. There's a lot more. Reach out. If we know what you're looking for, we can find something for you. Yes. Yeah, for sure. With that, there are a lot of ways to stay connected with us. If you have any questions, you can e mail Kathy or I. Our e mails are on the screen there. You can also follow us on Facebook and Instagram. We post a lot of great articles, resources, programs, events that might be relevant. Encourage that as well. We have a newsletter that comes out with some of the same information and opportunities and information. Then of course, we have our web page through Michigan F that has a helpful resources and links there as well.