Engaging Strategically to Build Farm and Farm Family Resilience
Professional Development Opportunities for Cooperative Extension
Announcing a New Interactive Workshop Series
June 28th, July 12th, & July 26th, 2021
In the 21st century, Extension can do for risk and resilience of farms and farm families what it did for American agriculture in the 20th century.
- Are you eager to learn how to build resilience in farms, farm families and the food system through your programming efforts?
- Are you one of many Extension educators who want to develop expertise to engage Extension colleagues, community members and organizations in working together to support farms and farm families?
- Would you like to have easy access to tools you can use in your programming?
- Are you looking for interactive learning experiences?
Then likely you’ll want to be part of a new workshop series designed with you in mind. As a result of participation, you will:
- Increase your understanding of how to integrate theory-based risk and resilience concepts into contemporary programming across Extension’s program areas.
- Develop confidence in your ability to engage community members in building resilience of farms and farm families.
- Create a plan of action for incorporating risk and resilience and community engagement.
Three interactive workshops will be offered by the University of Delaware Cooperative Extension and University of Maryland Extension supported by the Extension Foundation through a USDA-NIFA New Technologies in Agriculture Extension grant.
During workshop 1 and 2, we’ll be highlighting information from our new ePublication entitled Building Farm and Farm Family Resilience in our Communities: A Guide for Extension Professionals to Engage Strategically
Get Started
We encourage you to identify a team of 2 or more Extension colleagues to attend the series together.
For those teams who attend all three sessions, you’ll be placed into a drawing to receive a 1-hour consultation with the UD and MD Extension NTAE team members.
If you attend without a team, you’ll still be eligible for the drawing, but during the workshop will work with other participants who have also attended without a team. Create a team name and each team member will need to register for this workshop.
To add some fun, prior to each workshop, you’ll be invited to participate in a learning activity. Those who complete the activity in advance--by 12:00 pm EDT the Friday before--will be entered into a door prize drawing for a $25 Amazon gift card. The winner will be announced at the end of each workshop and must be present to receive the prize.
Don't delay, register today and tell your teammates to register as well!
Integrating Resiliency Thinking into your Extension Farm and Farm Family Programs
June 28, 2021 2-4:00pm EDT
Building resilience in our farms and farm families complements agriculture risk management programming. Built on the foundation of the Extension Farm and Farm Family Risk and Resilience Socio-Ecological Model for building resilient farms and farm families, you will be well on your way to integrating resiliency in your programming. During this session you will:
- Create a first draft of a Resilience Thinking and Doing Worksheet with action steps,
- Identify tools and resources you can use to support your programming efforts from the Farm and Farm Family Risk and Resilience A Guide for Extension Professionals E-Fieldbook, and
- Identify key partners to support your efforts.
Engaging Your Community to Strengthen Farm and Farm Family Risk and Resilience
July 12 2:00-4:00 pm EDT
It takes a village to build resilient farms, farm families and communities. How do we engage and leverage the resources of our communities to integrate resilience into individual and collaborative efforts? How do we cultivate community assets to address tough problems? Framing problems to be more inclusive for current or potential community partners to collectively build farm and farm family resilience provides avenues to build collaborations that cultivate change on a broader scale.
During this session you will:
- Learn how to frame problems inclusively,
- Identify strategies to make impact at multiple levels (individual, family, community),
- Learn strategies for collaborative engagement and
- Walk away with a draft of the Farm and Farm Family Risk and Resiliency Planning Worksheet that will outline your collaborative solutions that will create change.
Engaging Community Members in Addressing Community Issues Together –
An Introduction to the new How to Hold a Forum
July 26th 2:00-4:00pm EDT
Public issues need an engaged public to find solutions. Extension is well positioned to bring members of communities together to explore public issues. Community forums are one way to increase understanding of issues and to identify actions.
What role can a community forum play in helping attendees better understand community issues, build new connections, and develop individual and collective responses? How could a forum be used to build more resilient farms and farm families or address other pressing issues? Can on-line forums be as productive as on-site forums? Come get answers to these questions.
The presentation team will share examples from forums held in 2018-19 (face-to-face) in Delaware, Maryland and Ohio and in 2021 (online) across the Delaware-Maryland Eastern Shore. Learn what was similar and different and the results of the two methods. You may be surprised by the outcomes! During this session you will:
- Become acquainted with the new How to Hold a Community-Issue-Focused Forum eFieldbook.
- Learn what a forum can be, its value, how on-site differs from online forum
- Identify the steps to use to plan and implement a successful community engagement on important issues.
This program is brought to you by University of Delaware Cooperative Extension and University of Maryland Extension, services of their respective Colleges of Agriculture and Natural Resources and land-grant institution.
These institutions are equal opportunity providers. If you have special needs that need to be accommodated, please contact Maria Pippidis two weeks prior to the event.
This work is supported in part by New Technologies for Agriculture Extension grant no. 2020-41595-30123 from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the view of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.