Recruitment and Onboarding Resources for Extension in the West

Recruitment and retention of competent Extension professionals is a priority for ensuring that Extension remains relevant in communities. Extension program leaders in the West have developed an online resource to support recruiting and onboarding of new Extension professionals. Components of the resource include summaries and short videos featuring Extension professionals from throughout the region discussing Extension work, Extension\u27s history, community relationships, professional expectations, and program assessment. These elements are intended to support each state\u27s recruiting and mentoring programs and to foster a more cohesive approach across Extension for recruitment, onboarding, retention, and program assessment

Hooks and Anchors in Youth Development Program Delivery

Hooks and anchors remind Cooperative Extension educators to engage participants so they will attend programming and learn. The hook brings them in and sets the stage for learning. The anchor is the weight or content of the presentation. Examples refer to Cooperative Extension professionals, volunteers, and youth. Experiential learning is a hook, and life skills are anchors for youth

Inclusive Scholarship: Extension Program Participants as Poster Coauthors

The poster is a promising mechanism for inclusive scholarship. Inclusive scholarship provides direct opportunities for inclusion and representation. Community partner and youth participants in an urban gardening program were engaged in program-related scholarship via involvement in creation of a poster and its presentation at a community engagement conference. This article explains how including partners and youths as coauthors and copresenters helped Extension professionals reach a wider audience while deepening relationships, empowering youth participants, and improving data quality

Awards of Excellence Inspire and Motivate Extension Professionals

Extension awards recognize programs that have achieved outstanding accomplishments, results, and impacts in addressing contemporary issues. Whether an individual or a team is recognized, the awardees gain inspiration and motivation and may attain promotion and/or tenure. The Western Region Program Leadership Committee oversees a special award process that recognizes individuals and teams whose program outcomes result in regional and multistate impacts that benefit communities across the West. We describe a rubric that allows for equitable scoring across Extension content areas. Additionally, we recommend that Extension awards programs be expanded and encouraged to promote personal and professional growth

Bringing Family Voice to Determinants of Health

The Family Leadership Training Institute (FLTI) is a program that can respond to data documenting the health of the nation. Participants engage in individual civic projects that align with social determinants of health and seek to ameliorate health inequities. They also discover and/or increase their civic engagement skills to more effectively take part in policy and implementation discussions and decisions. With roots in Colorado, FLTI continues to expand into rural and urban communities throughout the state. The curriculum has been translated into Spanish, and a two-generation pilot implementation has indicated promise for including youths in a parallel program. Documentation regarding program effectiveness suggests that others in Extension may benefit interested communities by assisting them in replicating FLTI

Helping Schools: Youth Development as a Form of Supplemental Education

This study measured the impact of 4-H Youth Development on Colorado’s youth. Active youth were compared to those who did not participate in out-of-school activities. Data were collected from 5th, 7th, and 9th grade students. Results of the study confirm active students, including 4-H Youth Development members, were less likely to engage in at-risk behaviors. 4-H Youth Development can function as a form of supplemental education, contributing to academic, civic, and social success of young people

Effect of combined water drinking test and dark room provocative testing in Caucasian eyes with narrow angles

Purpose: To assess the usefulness of water drinking test and dark room provocative testing (WDT + DRPT) in current clinical practice by evaluating input parameters from Swept-source Optical Coherence Tomography (SS-OCT) images, and to determine if clinical factors like axial length, central endothelial cell count (CECC) and retinal nerve fibre layer thickness (RNFL) thickness are associated with a positive WDT + DRPT. Methods: SS-OCT examination was performed in consecutive subjects presenting as new patients in the outpatient clinic aged > 40 years. If at least one eye met the inclusion criteria (anterior chamber angles <20° and anterior chamber depth < 2.5 mm on SS-OCT), subjects were included in this study and WDT + DRPT was carried out. The eye with the smallest angle was analysed. The difference in parameters between eyes with a positive (≥8 mmHg) and negative (<8 mmHg) increase in intraocular pressure (IOP) after WDT + DRPT were statistically analysed. Second, the correlation between IOP increase after WDT + DRPT and anterior chamber angle parameters (RNFL thickness, CECC and axial length) was studied. Results: A total of 95 subjects with a mean age of 64 years were included. There was an association between IOP increase after WDT + DRPT and anterior chamber angle characteristics, however this was not of clinical significance. No positive results after WDT + DRPT were found in patients with anterior chamber angles ≥ 20°. Conclusions: The present findings indicate that this combined provocative test has no definite correlative or predictive value in angle closure disease. Further, the test is not useful in predicting early diagnosis or possible CECC or RNFL loss

Visuo-spatial ability in colonoscopy simulator training

Visuo-spatial ability is associated with a quality of performance in a variety of surgical and medical skills. However, visuo-spatial ability is typically assessed using Visualization tests only, which led to an incomplete understanding of the involvement of visuo-spatial ability in these skills. To remedy this situation, the current study investigated the role of a broad range of visuo-spatial factors in colonoscopy simulator training. Fifteen medical trainees (no clinical experience in colonoscopy) participated in two psycho-metric test sessions to assess four visuo-spatial ability factors. Next, participants trained flexible endoscope manipulation, and navigation to the cecum on the GI Mentor II simulator, for four sessions within 1 week. Visualization, and to a lesser degree Spatial relations were the only visuo-spatial ability factors to correlate with colonoscopy simulator performance. Visualization additionally covaried with learning rate for time on task on both simulator tasks. High Visualization ability indicated faster exercise completion. Similar to other endoscopic procedures, performance in colonoscopy is positively associated with Visualization, a visuo-spatial ability factor characterized by the ability to mentally manipulate complex visuo-spatial stimuli. The complexity of the visuo-spatial mental transformations required to successfully perform colonoscopy is likely responsible for the challenging nature of this technique, and should inform training- and assessment design. Long term training studies, as well as studies investigating the nature of visuo-spatial complexity in this domain are needed to better understand the role of visuo-spatial ability in colonoscopy, and other endoscopic techniques

Evaluation of Coach-Based Technical Assistance: An Evolving Focus on Coachability and Goal Setting

In 2013, the National Institute of Food and Agriculture supported the creation of a professional development and technical assistance center to promote strong implementation and evaluation of University-led, community-based projects serving low-resource populations. Within this center, a coaching cadre was established to provide proactive and responsive technical assistance. Formative evaluation involving coaches and their primary contacts was used for refinement of coaching practices. Initially, coaches were encouraged to build strong interpersonal rapport. This set the stage for trusting, reciprocal interactions, but coaches recognized a need for targeted support and more tools for quality programming, evaluation, and sustainability. Greater emphasis was placed on goal-focused collaboration. Coaches received training and resources on topics such as goal setting, program quality, reduction of barriers (e.g., participant recruitment), and sustainability strategies. To assess coaching model enhancements, a survey of projects was expanded to gauge logic model usage, goal setting, strength of coaching relationships, and project implementation and sustainability progress. Overall, coaching was rated more favorably and effective when contact was consistent, inclusive of face-to-face interaction, met technical needs, and involved collaborative brainstorming and planning. Findings indicate coaching relationships strengthen over time and demand a collaborative, action-orientation to set goals, reduce barriers, and drive stronger outcomes