4-H Community Conversations Youth Facilitator Training Course 

Kansas 4-H and the K-State Institute for Civic Discourse and Democracy invite youth to use their leadership and communication skills to learn how to have tough conversations that matter.  We are looking for teens who are ready to step up and step out!  Middle school and high school aged youth are welcome to attend the 4-H Community Conversations Youth Facilitator Training Course.  Participants will gain hands-on experience with leading groups, encouraging productive conversations and notetaking.  Teen facilitators should also be available to attend the Community Conversation scheduled for Sunday, January 12 from 1:00 to 5:00 pm at the Douglas County Fairgrounds.  The training is FREE.  Lunch will be provided.        

4-H Community Conversations offer youth the opportunity to join together to deliberate in an open forum, to make choices with others about ways to approach difficult issues and have tough conversations to work toward creating reasoned public judgment for the common good. Forums focus on a youth issue such as health, safety, violence, education, drugs and alcohol abuse, bullying, rural and urban issues, and much more. The forums provide a way for youth of diverse views and experiences to seek a shared understanding of the problem and to search for common ground for action. Forums are led by trained, neutral youth moderators who present the overall problem and then three or four approaches to working through the problem. Youth forum participants work through the issue by considering each approach; examining what appeals to them or concerns them, and also what the costs, consequences, and trade-offs may be that would be incurred in following that approach.