Trained Volunteers Research Articles

Encouraging the effectiveness of philanthropic institutions: Implementation of digital fundraising platform for Lazismu Medan City

The use of information technology in fundraising has brought about a significant transformation in the operations of charitable organizations, enabling the expansion of reach and increasing the effectiveness of activities. Lazismu Medan City, a philanthropic institution in Indonesia, faces challenges in optimizing fundraising activities due to limited digital technology capacity and less effective marketing strategies. This community service aims to develop and implement a digital platform to enhance Lazismu's capacity in managing fundraising efficiently and transparently, accessible via lazismumedan.org. Methods for implementing the service include developing a platform, conducting comprehensive training for Lazismu administrators and volunteers, as well as enhancing skills in using digital technology to raise funds. The results of this service show a significant increase in the number of donations collected and the level of donor satisfaction, indicating increased capacity and transparency in Lazismu's fundraising activities.

Malawian Health Care Workers’ Perceptions of Western Midwives: Towards Becoming a Welcome Guest

This article discusses a qualitative research project that explored Malawian health care workers' feelings towards western trained volunteer midwives. The project was framed from a constructivist theoretical perspective and utilized a descriptive research design. Participants included midwives, patient attendants, nurses and physicians working at the Embangweni Hospital in Malawi, Africa. Fourteen individual interviews were conducted over a three-month period. The data was analyzed for themes by two researchers and confirmed with participants through ongoing member checking. The first theme was that western midwives offer important contributions to health care services in Malawi. The second theme was that western midwives' limited knowledge of Malawian culture was problematic. The third theme was that thoughtful preparation before arriving in Malawi was valued.

Protocol for the Support Application for Food PAntrieS trial: design, implementation, and evaluation plan for a digital application to promote healthy food access and support food pantry operations.

Food-insecure households commonly rely on food pantries to supplement their nutritional needs, a challenge that was underscored during the COVID-19 pandemic. Food pantries, and the food banks that supply them, face common challenges in meeting variable client volume and dietary needs under normal and emergency (e.g., pandemic, natural disaster) conditions. A scalable digital strategy that has the capacity to streamline the emergency food distribution system, while promoting healthy food options, managing volunteer recruitment and training, and connecting to emergency management systems in times of need, is urgently required. To address this gap, we are developing a working mobile application (app) called the Support Application for Food PAntrieS (SAFPAS) and will evaluate its feasibility and impact on food pantry staff preparedness, stocking, and client uptake of healthful foods and beverages in two urban United States settings. This paper describes the protocol for a randomized controlled trial of the SAFPAS mobile application. We will conduct formative research in Baltimore, Maryland and Detroit, Michigan to develop and refine the SAFPAS app and increase scalability potential to other urban settings. Then we will test the app in 20 food pantries in Baltimore randomized to intervention or comparison. The impact of the app will be evaluated at several levels of the emergency food system, including food pantry clients (n = 360), food pantry staff and volunteers (n = 100), food pantry stock, and city agencies such as the local food bank and Office of Emergency Management. The primary outcome of the SAFPAS trial is to improve the healthfulness of the foods received by food pantry clients, measured using the Food Assessment Scoring Tool (FAST). Post-trial, we will conduct additional formative research in Detroit to prepare the app for scale-up. We anticipate that SAFPAS will improve alignment in the supply and demand for healthy foods among food pantry clients, food pantries, and city agencies which supply food in Baltimore. Real-time, bidirectional communication between entities across the system allows for increased situational awareness at all levels during normal and emergency operations. By conducting formative research in Detroit, we hope to increase the scalability of the SAFPAS app to additional settings nationwide. NCT87654321. https://classic.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT05880004.

The importance of volunteer civil protection and defense agents in reporting accidents and disasters: A case study of the mapping of occurrences in Nova Iguaçu-RJ

This article presents the benefits of a tool that trains volunteers who support the Municipal Protection and Civil Defense Coordination, working to reduce risks and manage accidents and disasters. The research focused on studying the role of volunteering in civil protection and defense in Brazil, identifying the type of disaster, by neighborhood, most relevant in the municipality of Nova Iguaçu, which caused the greatest damage and losses: floods. Furthermore, the relevance of the trained volunteer and the role of the Training Center for Emergencies and Disasters in training and preparing volunteers for a more technical vision were considered. The research methodology was qualitative, with researchers analyzing the information, actions and activities listed, to obtain data on practical actions, involving the target audience of the community. The information was extremely important for the creation of the map and its maintenance through reports from NUPDECs volunteer agents, who were in the affected communities. It is positive to conclude about the relevance of the tool created, despite the difficulties in obtaining the data for its preparation, which were overcome with the partnership of several actors involved.

4-H Volunteer Training Series: Recognizing Young People

Developing a sense of belonging is one of the Essential Elements of a positive youth development experience. Creating an inclusive environment in your 4-H club programs and activities can help you achieve this goal. Providing many forms of recognition for all, not just for those who excel in competition with other youth, supports this sense of belonging.

Peningkatan Keterampilan Literasi di Merauke: Program Baca-Tulis untuk Anak-Anak Pedesaan

This program aims to improve literacy skills in reading and writing among children in rural areas of Merauke, who still face disparities in access to quality education. Through a participatory approach, the program involves teachers, parents, and the local community in implementing literacy activities designed to foster reading interest and enhance children's writing abilities. Activities include providing relevant reading materials, training for teachers and volunteers, and interactive reading and writing sessions. Preliminary results show a significant improvement in children's literacy skills and increased community awareness of the importance of literacy education. This program is expected to serve as a sustainable model that can be replicated in other rural areas in Indonesia.

Modeling the Impact of Community First Responders

In community first responder (CFR) systems, traditional emergency service response is augmented by a network of trained volunteers who are dispatched via an app. A central application of such systems is out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA), where a very fast response is crucial. For a target performance level, how many volunteers are needed, and from which locations should they be recruited? We model the presence of volunteers throughout a region as a Poisson point process, which permits the computation of the response-time distribution of the first-arriving volunteer. Combining this with known survival-rate functions, we deduce survival probabilities in the cardiac arrest setting. We then use convex optimization to compute a location distribution of volunteers across the region that optimizes either the fraction of incidents with a fast response (a common measure in the industry) or patient survival in the case of OHCA. The optimal location distribution provides a bound on the best possible performance with a given number of volunteers. This can be used to determine whether introducing a CFR system in a new region is worthwhile or can serve as a guide for additional recruitment in existing systems. Effective target areas for recruitment are not always obvious because volunteers recruited from one area may be found in various areas across the city depending on the time of day; we explicitly capture this issue. We demonstrate these methods through an extended case study of Auckland, New Zealand. This paper was accepted by Carri Chan, healthcare management. Funding: This research was financed in part by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) in the form of a Rubicon grant (019.172EN.016) to C. J. Jagtenberg and a Veni grant (VI.Veni.191E.005) to P. L. van den Berg. S. G. Henderson and H. Li were supported in part by National Science Foundation [Grant CMMI-2035086]. Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and Erasmus University received funding from TKI Dinalog [Grant 2023-1-307TKI]. Some of this work has been executed under the TKI Dinalog [Grant 2023-1-307TKI]. Part of this work was completed during a research visit made possible by a [Distinguished Visitor Award] from the University of Auckland. Supplemental Material: The online appendix and data files are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2022.04024 .

A Strategic Human Resource Management Approach to Facilitating Volunteer Legacies From Mega-Sport Events: The Moderating Impact of Gender and Experience in the Case of Rio 2016

Volunteers are crucial for successful event delivery, from community to mega-events. Mega-sport events (MSE) are sold on their generative potential for social legacies for host communities like volunteering to support future community and tourism activity. With the lens of the temporal extension of the socioecological framework (TESEF), we propose that strategic human resource management (SHRM) across the volunteer journey will facilitate post-MSE legacy. A previously used online questionnaire and then structural equation modeling (SEM) are used to test 10 hypotheses with 4,824 Rio 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games volunteers. Analysis revealed four predictors (SHRM: recruitment, job allocation, and supervision; and Motivational: variety) have significant positive effects on overall satisfaction. However, volunteer training and overall satisfaction had a highly negative influence on legacy potential. SEM revealed the moderating effect of volunteers??? gender and prior experience. Gender moderated five relationship paths and experience moderated six relational paths. MSE management implications are explored.

Training Volunteers to Prune Recently Planted, Small Street Trees

AbstractBackgroundTrees in towns and cities provide many benefits, but also disservices such as risk and conflicts. Structural pruning of young trees can reduce future conflicts and risk as trees grow larger; it also can reduce future maintenance costs. Volunteers can perform important urban forestry tasks such as planting, watering, and conducting inventories. It was hypothesized that, with training, they could also learn to structurally prune young street trees.MethodsForty-seven volunteers in three cities in Massachusetts were trained to structurally prune trees. Twenty volunteers trained in a classroom lecture; twenty-seven trained with a hands-on approach. The volunteers’ performance was evaluated with a written exam andin situassessments of their ability to specify and explain pruning recommendations and make pruning cuts. Training type and covariates (e.g., volunteers’ familiarity with trees, number of branches) influence on volunteers’ performance were investigated.ResultsOn the assessment of volunteers’ ability to explain pruning recommendations, volunteers who received hands-on training achieved higher mean scores (79%) than volunteers who received classroom training (74%). All volunteers who received hands-on training did not leave a stub when making a reduction cut, but only 70% of volunteers who received classroom training did not leave a stub. Volunteers who received classroom training achieved higher scores on the exam (93%) than volunteers who received hands-on training (85%).ConclusionsResults suggest that with minimal training volunteers successfully learned structural pruning. This is an encouraging finding that may help municipal arborists accomplish more with limited urban forestry budgets.

Ghost roads and the destruction of Asia-Pacific tropical forests.

Roads are expanding at the fastest pace in human history. This is the case especially in biodiversity-rich tropical nations, where roads can result in forest loss and fragmentation, wildfires, illicit land invasions and negative societal effects1-5. Many roads are being constructed illegally or informally and do not appear on any existing road map6-10; the toll of such 'ghost roads' on ecosystems is poorly understood. Here we use around 7,000 h of effort by trained volunteers to map ghost roads across the tropical Asia-Pacific region, sampling 1.42 million plots, each 1 km2 in area. Our intensive sampling revealed a total of 1.37 million km of roads in our plots-from 3.0 to 6.6 times more roads than were found in leading datasets of roads globally. Across our study area, road building almost always preceded local forest loss, and road density was by far the strongest correlate11 of deforestation out of 38 potential biophysical and socioeconomic covariates. The relationship between road density and forest loss was nonlinear, with deforestation peaking soon after roads penetrate a landscape and then declining as roads multiply and remaining accessible forests largely disappear. Notably, after controlling for lower road density inside protected areas, we found that protected areas had only modest additional effects on preventing forest loss, implying that their most vital conservation function is limiting roads and road-related environmental disruption. Collectively, our findings suggest that burgeoning, poorly studied ghost roads are among the gravest of all direct threats to tropical forests.

Endocrine Responses to Heated Resistance Exercise in Men and Women.

Pryor, JL, Sweet, DK, Rosbrook, P, Qiao, J, Looney, DP, Mahmood, S, and Rideout, T. Endocrine responses to heated resistance exercise in men and women. J Strength Cond Res 38(7): 1248-1255, 2024-We examined the endocrine responses of 16 (female = 8) resistance trained volunteers to a single bout of whole-body high-volume load resistance exercise in hot (HOT; 40° C) and temperate (TEMP; 20° C) environmental conditions. Thermoregulatory and heart rate (HR) data were recorded, and venous blood was acquired before and after resistance exercise to assess serum anabolic and catabolic hormones. In men, testosterone increased after resistance exercise in HOT and TEMP ( p < 0.01), but postexercise testosterone was not different between condition ( p = 0.51). In women, human growth hormone was different between condition at pre-exercise ( p = 0.02) and postexercise ( p = 0.03). After controlling for pre-exercise values, the between-condition postexercise difference was abolished ( p = 0.16). There were no differences in insulin-like growth factor-1 for either sex ( p ≥ 0.06). In women, cortisol increased from pre-exercise to postexercise in HOT ( p = 0.04) but not TEMP ( p = 0.19), generating a between-condition difference at postexercise ( p < 0.01). In men, cortisol increased from pre-exercise to postexercise in HOT only ( p < 0.01). Rectal temperature increased to a greater extent in HOT compared with TEMP in both men ( p = 0.01) and women ( p = 0.02). Heart rate increased after exercise under both conditions in men and women ( p = 0.01), but only women experience greater postexercise HR in HOT vs. TEMP ( p = 0.04). The addition of heat stress to resistance exercise session did not overtly shift the endocrine response toward an anabolic or catabolic response. When acute program variables are prescribed to increase postresistance exercise anabolic hormones, adding heat stress is not synergistic but does increase physiologic strain (i.e., elevated HR and rectal temperature).

Facilitators and barriers of implementing end-of-life care volunteering in a hospital in five European countries: the iLIVE study

BackgroundEnd-of-life (EoL) care volunteers in hospitals are a novel approach to support patients and their close ones. The iLIVE Volunteer Study supported hospital volunteer coordinators from five European countries to design and implement an EoL care volunteer service on general wards in their hospitals. This study aimed to identify and explore barriers and facilitators to the implementation of EoL care volunteer services in the five hospitals.MethodsVolunteer coordinators (VCs) from the Netherlands (NL), Norway (NO), Slovenia (SI), Spain (ES) and United Kingdom (UK) participated in a focus group interview and subsequent in-depth one-to-one interviews. A theory-inspired framework based on the five domains of the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR) was used for data collection and analysis. Results from the focus group were depicted in radar charts per hospital.ResultsBarriers across all hospitals were the COVID-19 pandemic delaying the implementation process, and the lack of recognition of the added value of EoL care volunteers by hospital staff. Site-specific barriers were struggles with promoting the service in a highly structured setting with many stakeholders (NL), negative views among nurses on hospital volunteering (NL, NO), a lack of support from healthcare professionals and the management (SI, ES), and uncertainty about their role in implementation among VCs (ES). Site-specific facilitators were training of volunteers (NO, SI, NL), involving volunteers in promoting the service (NO), and education and awareness for healthcare professionals about the role and boundaries of volunteers (UK).ConclusionEstablishing a comprehensive EoL care volunteer service for patients in non-specialist palliative care wards involves multiple considerations including training, creating awareness and ensuring management support. Implementation requires involvement of stakeholders in a way that enables medical EoL care and volunteering to co-exist. Further research is needed to explore how trust and equal partnerships between volunteers and professional staff can be built and sustained.Trial registrationNCT04678310. Registered 21/12/2020.

Assessing the implementation fidelity, feasibility, and sustainability of community-based house improvement for malaria control in southern Malawi: a mixed-methods study

BackgroundDespite significant success in the fight against malaria over the past two decades, malaria control programmes rely on only two insecticidal methods: indoor residual spraying and insecticidal-treated nets. House improvement (HI) can complement these interventions by reducing human-mosquito contact, thereby reinforcing the gains in disease reduction. This study assessed the implementation fidelity, which is the assessment of how closely an intervention aligns with its intended design, feasibility, and sustainability of community-led HI in southern Malawi.MethodsThe study, conducted in 22 villages (2730 households), employed a mixed-methods approach. Implementation fidelity was assessed using a modified framework, with longitudinal surveys collecting data on HI coverage indicators. Quantitative analysis, employing descriptive statistics, evaluated the adherence to HI implementation. Qualitative data came from in-depth interviews, key informant interviews, and focus groups involving project beneficiaries and implementers. Qualitative data were analysed using content analysis guided by the implementation fidelity model to explore facilitators, challenges, and factors affecting intervention feasibility.ResultsThe results show that HI was implemented as planned. There was good adherence to the intended community-led HI design; however, the adherence could have been higher but gradually declined over time. In terms of intervention implementation, 74% of houses had attempted to have eaves closed in 2016-17 and 2017-18, compared to 70% in 2018–19. In 2016–17, 42% of houses had all four sides of the eaves closed, compared to 33% in 2018–19. Approximately 72% of houses were screened with gauze wire in 2016-17, compared to 57% in 2018-19. High costs, supply shortages, labour demands, volunteers’ poor living conditions and adverse weather were reported to hinder the ideal HI implementation. Overall, the community described community-led HI as feasible and could be sustained by addressing these socioeconomic and contextual challenges.ConclusionOur study found that although HI was initially implemented as planned, its fidelity declined over time. Using trained volunteers facilitated the fidelity and feasibility of implementing the intervention. A combination of rigorous community education, consistent training, information, education and communication, and intervention modifications may be necessary to address the challenges and enhance the intervention’s fidelity, feasibility, and sustainability.

Trauma-informed palliative care for humanitarian crises

Abstract Healthcare triage during humanitarian crises requires attention to saving lives and prevention of suffering at end of life. The prevalence of life-threatening experiences during humanitarian crises needs a trauma-informed palliative care approach, attending to the trauma-related psychosocial needs of patients, caregivers, and health care providers to support healing. This commentary includes research and practice literature that builds on and complements themes from an International Psychosocial Oncology Society Palliative Care Special Interest Group initiative. During humanitarian crises, palliative care experts contribute to mobilizing and training host country health care providers and volunteers who reciprocally promote cultural sensitivity for patients and their caregivers in all aspects of death and dying. Future directions require assessing how best to integrate trauma-informed principles into early and later responses to humanitarian crises. Culturally sensitive research partnerships with patients and caregivers must account for hierarchy and flexibility in research design and knowledge construction.

Developing, engaging, and sustaining CERT programs in low-risk communities.

I am a recently trained (2021) volunteer in my county’s Community Emergency Response Team (CERT), which is managed by the County Fire and Rescue Department. As you know, CERT programs train volunteers in basic disaster response skills such as team organization, disaster medical operations, fire safety, and light search-and-rescue, so that they can assist their families, neighbors, coworkers, and other community members during emergencies when professional responders may be unavailable to provide immediate assistance.

Concurrent validation of the resistance intensity scale for exercise for monitoring velocity-based training with elastic bands

The aim was to evaluate the concurrent validity and reliability of the Resistance Intensity Scale for Exercise [RISE], which uses verbal descriptors, to quantify the intensity in velocity-based training with elastic bands. Eighteen trained volunteers performed parallel squats at maximum speed at 40%, 55%, 70%, and 85%1RM in four sessions, two for familiarization and two for reliability. Each set was stopped at a 10% intra-set velocity loss. Participants reported the perceived effort (easy-low-moderate-hard-maximal) at the first and last repetition. The concurrent validation was conducted with external load (i.e., mean propulsive velocity, weight, repetitions, and maximum power) and internal load parameters (i.e., heart rate). Participants' relative strength was calculated to assess its influence on the dependent variable. Acceptable concurrent validity and reliability (ICC>0.77, CV<21%) were observed, with the perceived effort being appropriate to differentiate between intensities and not being influenced by the participants’ relative strength (p = 0.88). A categorical linear regression showed significant (p < 0.001) associations between the RISE scores and the weight, repetitions, and mean propulsive velocity (r = 0.43–0.63). The findings certify the usefulness of the perceived exertion for quantifying the intensity during velocity-based training with elastic bands. The perceived exertion of the first and last repetition favors a proper dosage of the training load.

The IMPROVE trial: study protocol for a pragmatic cluster randomised controlled trial to assess the effectiveness of using lay health workers to improve uptake and completion of pulmonary rehabilitation in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

BackgroundPulmonary rehabilitation (PR) is a programme of exercise and education and the most effective treatment for the symptoms and disability associated with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. However, the benefits of PR are limited by poor uptake and completion. This trial will determine whether using trained volunteer lay health workers, called “PR buddies,” improves uptake and completion of PR and is cost-effective. This trial protocol outlines the methods for evaluating effectiveness, cost-effectiveness, and acceptability.MethodsThe IMPROVE trial is a pragmatic, open, cluster randomised controlled trial planned in 38 PR services across England and Wales. PR services will be randomised to either intervention arm—offering support from PR buddies to patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease—or to usual care as the control arm. PR staff in trial sites randomised to the intervention arm will receive training in recruiting and training PR buddies. They will deliver training to volunteers, recruited from among people who have recently completed PR in their service. The 3-day PR-buddy training programme covers communication skills, confidentiality, boundaries of the PR-buddy role and behaviour change techniques to help patients overcome obstacles to attending PR. An internal pilot will test the implementation of the trial in eight sites (four intervention sites and four in control arm). The primary outcome of the trial is the uptake and completion of PR. A process evaluation will investigate the acceptability of the intervention to patients, PR staff and the volunteer PR buddies, and intervention fidelity. We will also conduct a cost-effectiveness analysis.DiscussionImproving outcomes for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and access to PR are priorities for the UK National Health Service (NHS) in its long-term plan. The trial hypothesis is that volunteer PR buddies, who are recruited and trained by local PR teams, are an effective and cost-effective way to improve the uptake and completion rates of PR. The trial is pragmatic, since it will test whether the intervention can be incorporated into NHS PR services. Information obtained in this trial may be used to influence policy on the use of PR buddies in PR and other similar services in the NHS.Trial registrationISRCTN12658458. Registered on 23/01/2023.

The Systematic Construction of Emergency Medical Security System in Long-Distance Walking Movement on Urban Paved Roads

Objective To explore the scope of building emergency medical security mechanism in urban paved road environment, and to provide reference, sample data and improvement suggestions for building emergency medical security mechanism in such specific environment. Methods The data of rescue personnel deployment, rescue materials allocation, rescue force monitoring, actual rescue situation, emergency plan and relevant regulations setting, training and other aspects of the emergency medical security mechanism in March and April 2023 were collected, and the data were analyzed. Results (1) The hiking distance was 40km and the road conditions were urban paved roads. There were 1150 official trekkers and 65 people were treated medically. (2) The most common symptoms of outdoor hiking included skeletal muscle injury (19.48%), foot skin and soft tissue injury (18.17%), fever (2.61%) and diarrhea (0.61%). (3) In March, 18.36% of the core medical team members and 20.41% of the first aid volunteers who underwent systematic training took up the task of supporting hiking activities. In April, the core medical team personnel who undertook the task of supporting hiking activities accounted for 1.23% of the total number of the security team, and the first aid volunteers who underwent systematic training accounted for 37.04%. (4) According to local conditions, the multi-vehicle rescue and transport mode was adopted, which was combined with the modified commercial rescue vehicle (42.86%) with the on-board emergency medical unit (EMU) and the ordinary ambulance (28.57%). (5) More than 700 pieces of 34 kinds of medical materials and 40 sets of mobile communication equipment, which were put into use after the feasibility study of the expert group and the technical group, guaranteed the competition from the hardware level. Conclusion The construction of emergency medical support mechanism in outdoor walking sports needs to pay attention to environmental characteristics, operation mode of support team, personnel and adaptability training, equipment and deployment of medical support materials, deployment and cooperation of communication and transport capacity, reasonable support plan and other factors. Medical volunteers who have been systematically trained can undertake part of outdoor medical rescue work. Pre-activity training and regular re-training of medical volunteers can ensure the safety of outdoor activities.

Community-Based Strategies for Disaster Preparedness in Mauritius

Mauritius is Small Island Developing State (SIDS) of volcanic origin which lies in the South-West Indian Ocean Basin and is vulnerable to the consequences of global environmental challenges. The fourth priority action of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 is to consolidate disaster preparedness for an effective response and to have a Build Back Better agenda that will improve recovery, rehabilitation, and reconstruction. This research aimed at examining the disaster management system in Mauritius through community-based approaches. The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Centre’s (NDRRMC) involvement with the community living in high-risk zones was investigated. This study used quantitative data gathered from secondary sources and included the number of field training simulation exercises, training of volunteers under the Community Disaster Response Programme (CDRP), awareness campaigns and formulation of contingency plans based on documentation across Mauritius. The NDRRMC identified 109 high-risk zones across Mauritius out of which 13.7 per cent benefitted from all four forms of mitigation activities. Results indicated that contingency plans in Mauritius were evidence-based and had been developed after identification of disaster risk in selected regions, and therefore, they were limited to some types of disasters only. Findings also revealed that flooding was the most common type of simulated disaster exercise undertaken. The greatest number of field simulation exercises was carried out in Poste de Flacq. Results also demonstrated that only 38.5% of the community were exposed to disaster-related awareness campaigns, making it the least common form of disaster risk reduction (DRR) activity in Mauritius.

4-H Afterschool Resource Guide: Starting 4-H Clubs in After-School Programs

This resource guide is designed to be used by Extension/4-H professionals and after-school providers to deliver well-formed, positive youth development programs in after-school sites. It includes information on initiating the development of 4-H clubs at after-school sites, volunteer training resources and exercises, how to sustain the clubs, and connections to the community and beyond. The original educational material was edited and revised for this edition by the National Association of 4-H Youth Development Professionals Afterschool Working Group, led by Vanessa Spero. Published by the 4-H Youth Development Department, UF/IFAS Extension, March 2024.