Building youth leadership skills and community awareness: Engagement of rural youth with a community‐based leadership program

Abstract

Aims: Community leadership programs have the potential to positively impact many aspects of young people's development, as well as the community. This study, therefore, aims to understand the experiences of the young people, particularly rural youth, involved with the Western Bulldogs Youth Leadership Project (WBYLP), a 7-month program for Year-9 and Year-10 students, and if the developmental assets are a good framework to inform future program development.Method: A transformative mixed-methods design was used and included surveys with 96 participants at two time points, and semistructured interviews with eight participants.Results: Quantitatively leadership significantly increased, particularly due to increases in the domains of understanding self and decision-making skills. Social competencies increased, though total developmental assets did not. Interviews identified four primary themes: Perspective taking, self-efficacy, community awareness, and decreased isolation.Conclusions: These results indicate that participants developed both individual skills relating to leadership and social skills. The participants also developed their awareness of the issues in their community.

Mixed methods in community psychology: A values‐forward synthesis

“…Complementarity is also distinguished from the goal of expansion, which interrogates distinct but related phenomena, most often with the explicit focus of broadening the scope of research. As an example of complementarity, Puxley and Chapin (2021) used mixed methods to evaluate a youth leadership program. Whereas quantitative data examined changes in leadership skills over time, qualitative data answered the related but separate question of what rural participants learned about themselves and their communities through the program.…”

“…MMR, and in particular studies designed toward the purpose of initiation, can be valuable approaches to “finding” whether and how paradox exists. Initiation‐based studies were sometimes used to recast and contextualize null findings and the hypothesis‐testing paradigm of postpositivist inquiry (e.g., Anderson et al, 2020; Puxley & Chapin, 2021). Especially for scholarship with and on behalf of marginalized groups, utilizing MMR for initiation can be a critical way to reveal the discrepancies between program design and the needs and lived experiences of the participants these programs are meant to serve but may fail to address.…”

How Are Leadership Programs Empowering Our Vulnerable Children and Youth? A Scoping Review

“…The programs identified in the review used a range of both qualitative and quantitative evaluation methods. Many studies employed interviews with participants (n = 22) (Brown and Albert 2015;Christens and Dolan 2011;Dima and Bucuta 2020;Franzen et al 2009;Gullan et al 2013;Halsall and Forneris 2018;Harvey et al 2021;Ile and Boadu 2018;Levy 2012;McNae 2010;Owen and Irion-Groth 2020;Parkhill et al 2018;Pearrow 2008;Pink et al 2020;Quinn and Nguyen 2017;Sisselman-Borgia 2021;Stedman et al 2009;Taylor 2016;Zimmerman et al 2011) or surveys (n = 11) (Franzen et al 2009;Mazurek Melnyk et al 2007;Moody et al 2003;Morrel-Samuels et al 2018;Redivo and Buckman 2004;Sewell et al 2020;Sisselman-Borgia 2021;Taylor 2016;Thomas and Mcadoo 2008;Thorpe 2007;Zimmerman et al 2011), while others used scales (n = 9) (Crave and El Sawi 2001;Grenwelge 2010;Teasley et al 2007;Zimmerman et al 2011), including the youth leadership life skills developmental scale (Ahrens et al 2015;Puxley and Chapin 2020), the individual protective factors index (Berlin et al 2007), a program session satisfaction scale…”

Developing emerging leaders in civil society: an experiential learning initiative in North Macedonia

“…Youth are a critical element to the effective growth of any given community, regardless of size or economic situation (Buzinde et al, 2019;Govan et al, 2015;Puxley & Chapin, 2021). The dynamic and collaborative relationship between a community and its youth provides enhanced community strength and more youth to thrive and emerge as leaders (Brennan & Barnett, 2009).…”

“…The five projects developed by these teams of marginalized youth impacted more than 3,000 people directly through these services, and more than 10,000 people indirectly through community engagement and awareness. As described in the literature, youth are a critical element to the effective growth of any given community, regardless of size or economic situation (Buzinde et al, 2019;Govan et al, 2015;Puxley & Chapin, 2021).…”