‘Kids coming out of the pandemic are not broken.’ Our conversation with Beth Birnstihl.

Posted October 11, 2022, by Mindi Wisman

Beth Birnstihl

From the Foresight Initiative, here is our conversation with Beth Birnstihl, PhD. Beth is the Mission to Market Director for the National 4-H Council. 4‑H is the largest youth development organization in the U.S., providing mentoring and research-based programming to nearly six million young people. 4‑H is delivered by Cooperative Extension—a community of more than 100 public universities across the country that provides experiences where young people learn by doing. They recently released a report showing how the pandemic amplified the inequities today’s young people face in accessing quality education, and addressing their mental health needs. Beth talked with us about the strengths and innovations she saw in young people throughout the entire Cooperative Extension 4-H system over the past few years.

Mindi: What is 4-H’s greatest strength?

Beth:  Research guides what the Cooperative Extension 4-H system does; whether it’s how to take care of your rabbit, or make a healthy meal, or in understanding brain development; 4-H wants to know the best ways to help young people achieve their goals. Organizations and companies like to hire 4-H youth because they have developed strong skills in things like public speaking, they have confidence, they have all these abilities. 4-H is all about helping young people be successful.

M: Could you talk about the pandemic challenges over the past couple of years, from macro and micro perspectives?

B: The Cooperative Extension 4-H system always wants to look at a situation as being filled with innovative opportunity. When I look at the past few years, there have been all kinds of opportunities. Yes, it was a time of upheaval. Staff had to make an immediate turn from face-to-face meetings to figuring out how to help young people learn online and have out-of-school time learning opportunities. But we found ways to develop interactive experiences online. For example, staff would put out a call to ‘meet online to build a robot,’ and they would have dozens and dozens of kids within a specific community come online to work together. Turnout like that blew staff away, they realized how excited young people were to meet up.

Not every young person had virtual learning though; what happened to the young person who lived in a very rural area where there was no internet connection? Staff sent out activities to school districts to distribute when they dropped off lunches to kids along their bus route, or put learning experiences on the front steps of their offices and families picked them up. 4-H had to turn on a dime, but I think it taught all of us that there's more than one way to do something, you just have to try.

Young people are coming back to in-person 4-H activities. But some are having to re-learn social skills. Young people are challenged by anxiety because of what's happened in their families and communities, so 4-H is not any different than any other youth serving organization. We've had to adapt, but we are thrilled that we are now seeing young people want to learn face-to-face. They're also wanting to learn virtually and to learn in hybrid environments, so we have to keep finding opportunities to keep them engaged. 

M: Could you talk more about other innovations that you saw?

B: Cooperative Extension 4-H programs linked up with other youth serving organizations like the Boys and Girls Club, the YMCA, or with a church. So the innovation was 4-H bringing the content and partnering with other groups, which led to opportunities. There has been some wonderful Federal funding to develop learning experiences on the 4-H virtual platform and staff became motivated and stimulated by developing content and presenting it in a new way. If you always developed and delivered a program face-to-face, you knew you could do that. But, having to develop and build a program that was online and interactive for kids to experience and learn to do on their own, has been exciting for staff.

M: Are there some things that really changed over the past couple of years that could become permanent changes?

B: I think our robust online learning platforms will stay. The confidence and grittiness that we saw from staff, and their ability to adapt quickly will stay. Now, that's not to say we’re not going to return to a lot of face-to-face work. But, we’re seeing a more mobile workforce; staff turnover is real. We have to deal with it, expect it, and prepare for it.

M: I recently spoke with another youth development leader, who said they value youth as stakeholders in their organization more than ever. Is that similar for the Cooperative Extension 4-H system?

B: Without question. The National 4-H Council has a young adult advisory committee, and they give input to our Council’s trustees. And we have a youth trustee who sits on our decision-making board. We're also seeing teens as teachers, teens stepping up to lead in new ways, being willing to share their stories publicly of something in their life that has caused them to work and be an active youth voice. Young people want to come, and lead, and do. And so we're seeing some great public stories of impact and change that these young folks are leading. Stories like a young woman who was leading racial education discussion groups within her high school. And a young man encouraging LGBTQ+ youth to get involved in 4-H in their communities.  

Our organization has helped youth identify equity issues to work on in their communities, from a playground that is not accessible, to a community that is a food desert where people cannot find healthy food. Teens are leading the way, which is really good and really important.

 M: What are your biggest lessons learned from the past couple years that will serve the Cooperative Extension 4-H system and youth, going forward?

B: Look for the opportunity. Look for the new youth voices that want be involved. Always remember that 4-H is here to help young people be well and strong. We're not here to fix them. Kids coming out of the pandemic are not broken kids. They're good kids, we just have to help them rebound and use their resources. So, look for what we can do to help everyone achieve. There was a time when everybody in the middle of the pandemic thought all we would be doing was remedial work, but it's not. We’re helping youth use their assets to be successful, and encouraging them to not be afraid to fail. We look forward to many young kids and many new environments becoming involved in our activities. 4-H is here for everybody.