back but suggest that she talk to the faculty members who may be involved with the programs. Who might that be? Really I have no idea, but if you ask around or talk to someone in the program, I amsure they will know. Bev was part of the tip of the spear at ECOP4-H in the push to place an emphasis on reaching new populations, and new groups of youth, to ensure diversity and equity. She believes deeply in the effort as an expressionof all that 4-H could be for young people across the nation. Left with few people to talk to and little knowledge of 4-H programs across the LGU, Bev figures at least she can look at raw numbers against those goals andget a sense of how the state is doing relative to these new directions. She looks at the sta te’s demographic projections for the youth and compares them to the existing distribution of young people engaged in 4-H, taking out the ten most rural counties. There is absolutely no relationshipbetween the two, even for the two largest cities in the state. Bev calls together her four staff programspecialists at central campus, witha forceful presentation about the need to get better control of 4-H. She lays out three reasons for that move: • first, we cannot ensure quality if we do not know what is happening; • second, we cannot communicate about 4-H in the LGUor in our communities if we do not have a unified, powerful statement about size and community reach; and, • third, we need not just information coming in and networking across the system, we need to push information and policy out, especially information about the changing demographics of this state. If we do not do this, it is only a matter of time before 4-H starts delaminating fromthe directions of young people, and once that starts, it will be very difficult to stop. We need to get out in front of the demographic curve. Eight eyebrows are raisednearly to the scalp line. But the problem of lack of coherence across the system is clear – in fact has been clear for years. And so long as Bev is willing to be the face of change, to be in front of the curtain while they are behind it, everyone agrees. We canalways go back, they think, and besides none of this is going to fall on us.
Taking Back Control
Six weeks later, Bev and her teamhave a plan for centralizing management of 4-H into her office in the headquarters campus. She meets with the state ExtensionDirector and makes the pitch. The plan calls for re-centralizing the articulationof programming standards and for setting diversity goals across the state and in eachcounty. Quality and diversitywill be part of detailed regular reporting. Moreover, we are going to organize this state into four regions and call my programspecialists Regional Coordinators. We will have about 12 counties in each region, more or less. I will have each Regional Coordinator be the plug-in point for each region, she says, so that tracking is efficient, and we pick up opportunities (or problems) early enough to make a difference. Those four Regional Coordinators will report to me weekly. I will chair a quarterly ZOOMmeeting of all 4-H county educators to ensure that everyone feels included, and that they know they have a direct line into me, but that line is digital so that the Regional Coordinators do not feel there is an end run around them.
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