Seen And Heard
Creating positive environments for youth-counselor voice and empowerment
By Rebecca Meyer, Betsy Minneart-Olson, Nicole Pokorney
The University of Minnesota Extension Center for Youth Development offers a variety of residential camping experiences through the Minnesota 4-H Camping Program. 4-H camps, typically for 3rd to 8th graders, provide guided outdoor-learning opportunities and traditional experiences.
Pexels / Vanessa Loring
One of the components of 4-H camps that has a strong influence on quality youth-learning are the youth-adult relationships that develop in a residential-camp setting, given the relatively small age gap between campers and teen counselors.[1] In order to maximize this positive impact, it is critical that adult staff members partner with teen counselors to ensure the youth voice informs each camp experience. Adults must value youth expertise and insights, and youth must respect and understand adult perspectives and experience.[2] This model increases the opportunity for teen counselors to strengthen leadership skills, and creates elements that are youth-friendly and therefore engaging to campers.
Building Skills
Many high school youth are recruited and trained to be counselors. Camp-counselor training takes an average of 20 hours through in-person and virtual learning. As a result, counselors can accomplish the following:
Create group norms, build relationships, strengthen teamwork, and build problem-solving skills
Feel prepared to handle real-life situations
Feel prepared to allow campers to have a welcoming, educational, and enjoyable experience
Build and strengthen skills in facilitation and lesson-planning to effectively create learning environments
Explore self-awareness and reflection as they learn to make mindful and balanced choices.
Training sessions build collaboration among staff members and counselors, especially in building trust and the relationships necessary to form effective youth-adult partnerships.
Staff members and counselors are partners in co-designing camp elements. Giving youth a voice in planning is an important way to share leadership, demonstrate trust, and build skills among youth counselors. This also tends to favor camp traditions and history, but can also make it difficult to move past practices that no longer fit. Working to eliminate counter-productive traditions in partnership with youth takes longer, but the impact of a true youth-adult partnership is paramount.
Individuals involved in this program agree to a standard of behavior that supports a welcoming environment that is physically and emotionally safe by acknowledging the Minnesota 4-H Code of Conduct. Additionally, six key areas of responsibilities are identified for camp counselors that include cabin leaders, group leaders, camp-program teachers, committee roles, mentors/coaches, and positive role models.
Pexels / Barbara Olsen
Developing Clear Lines Of Communication
Transparency is critical in the leadership structure at 4-H camp. To effectively enable youth to take on the roles necessary for an authentic youth-adult partnership and effective camp delivery, clear lines of communication and decision-making practices must be in place. Some camps create tiered leadership structures for counselors so communication can be directed to one or more elected counselor directors; other camps use nightly counselor meetings to ensure open and ongoing communication.
Another way of ensuring empowerment and voice is creating inclusive environments at camp-counselor training and at camp. Staff training includes outdoor programming as well as risk-management practices that follow equity policies and methods:
Listen and learn from voices and experiences different from one’s own without burdening others.
Ask difficult questions about how programs meet the needs of young people. A A welcoming environment free from trauma may feel safe for one individual, but that doesn't mean it is for everyone.
Cultivate approaches to ensure equity and inclusiveness in the educational and development process. Design outdoor education as a system for building resilience in young people.
Reassess recruiting and marketing processes. Reframing and recreating programs for a broader audience isn't going to automatically make a program more diverse. If marketing strategies haven’t changed, participants will likely be the same, even for a new program.
Organize a program that serves a different audience. Instead of investing time recruiting young people, partner with another organization and build a high-quality program to reach a broader audience in your area.[3]
Within the Minnesota 4-H camp context, there are limitations within this approach, and the work continues towards improving participant experiences (both campers and counselors). First, there is limited time to prepare and train counselors for their roles and responsibilities. Additionally, due to the nature of utilizing older youth as counselors, there is often a need to keep some counselors engaged in activities with campers. This decision diminishes opportunities for whole team reflection. Finally, Minnesota 4-H Camp opportunities are often short experiences with an average stay of three or four days, and camp may only happen for one session, not multiple sessions.
Youth leadership is part of many traditional camp models. The 4-H model demonstrates the value of enriching the leadership roles for older teens through intentional engagement strategies that encourage authentic voice, empowerment, and shared leadership among youth and adults.
Rebecca Meyer, Betsy Minneart-Olson, and Nicole Pokorney are Extension Educators for the University of Minnesota Extension Center for Youth Development.
References
[1] Wilson, C., Akiva, T., Sibthorp, J. and Browne, L. P. (2019). “Fostering distinct and transferable learning via summer camp,” Children and Youth Services Review, 98, 269-277.
[2] Anderson, K. S. and Sandmann, L. (2009). “Toward a model of empowering practices in youth-adult partnerships,” Journal of Extension, 47(2), 1-8.
[3] Abbas, K. and Pokorney, N. (2022). Creating inclusive and impactful outdoor learning experiences. [U of MN: Center of Youth Development Web Post].