Life Skills Development in the

4-H Youth Development Program

San Luis Obispo County

November 1, 2003

Richard P. Enfield, 4-H Youth Development Advisor

What Are Life Skills?

Examples of Life Skills

•Organizing & Goal Setting

•Problem Solving

•Social Skills & Cooperation

•Concern for others

•Self-Motivation & Teamwork•Leadership & Responsible Citizenship•Self-responsibility & Character•Safety & Healthy Lifestyle Choices

Targeting Life Skills Model for 4-H Youth Development

Assumptions about Life Skills

Life skills are on a continuum; learning builds upon past experience.

Life skills are incorporated with content as the method of delivery.

It is best to focus on building and measuring one, two, or a few.

A Targeting Life Skill (TLS) Activity

The best way to learn the TLS process is to use it when planning your project meetings and activities.

There is no right or wrong way.Adapt it to your work style.Not linear – but cyclical.

1. Topic:

The topic is the overall subject matter or theme around which the curriculum will be developed.

The topic is usually in response to a need.

Generic title that is specific as possibleExample: Ages and stages of the pre-school

child vs. child development.

2. Life Skills:

Life skills are ways of applying information learned to real life situations.

Which of the eight life skill categories do you want to coordinate with the topic identified?Life skills determine how the subject matter

is delivered – the life skill drives the activity. Identify from the list of life skill components

those that correlate best with the content.Question: Which life skills will be practiced?

3. Age:

The age or grade of the learners helps to establish the developmental stage of the target audience.

Growth is a continuum: Mental, physical emotional & social development continues from birth throughout life.

A young person will not fit into exactly any category. Each youth progresses at an individual rate.

3. Age, continued:

Development is not equal across all areas.

There is a range of development within each stage.

Question: What is the appropriate level of delivery?

Refer to the handout of “Developmentally Appropriate Life Tasks”

4. Desired Impacts:

The desired impact/goal is the overall program purpose in terms of youth development.

Question: What will the learners be able to demonstrate after completing the program because of participating in the project meeting?

4. Desired Impacts, Examples:

Youth in grades 4-6 will demonstrate knowledge gained of the principles of photography by taking well-composed pictures.

Youth in grades 4-6 will improve their ability to communicate their ideas, thoughts, and feelings through photography while learning how to take well-compose pictures.

5. Key Concepts:

Key concepts are subtopics or segments of information by which the content is divided for delivery. Like a brief outline .

The total of the subtopics equals the entire topic.

Question: What do 4-H members need/want to learn?

6. Content Objective:

The content objectives identify the information to be delivered to the learner.

Content objectives relate to the subject matter information to be presented.

Question: What will the learner be expected to know after completing the activities?

7. Life Skill Objective

The life skill objective identifies how the content will be applied and practiced.

Identify the life skill component to be integrated with the content objective.

Question: What will the learner be able to do after the activity or activities?

Example: If you want to develop communication skills in youth, identify whether it will be writing skills, speaking skills, listening skills, interpretation of body language, etc.

8. Instructional Plan

The Instructional plan is the design of activities needed to accomplish the objectives and achieve the desired impact.

Question: What do learners need to experience to be able to demonstrate the desired impact?

9. Observable indicators

…Identification of Measurable indicators of success.

Indicators are specific, observable, and measurable changes in knowledge, attitude, skill, or behavior that are linked to goal achievement.

Question: How will you know if the desired learning has taken place?

Conclusions

High quality youth development experiences are more likely to happen when well planned.

Targeting Life Skills Model provides a structure to plan & achieve desired results.

Ending Thoughts:

The most important idea I will take home from this training is…

One thing that I will use right away is…

Two things about the topic that I want to learn more about in the future are…

Credits and Thanks:

Many of the graphics contributed by Peggy Gregory, 4-H Youth Development Advisor, Kings County, CA

Much of the content taken from the Targeting Life Skills Model: Training Guide (1998) by Patricia A Hendricks, Ph.D., Extension Youth Development Specialist, Iowa State University