California Agriculture

California’s 4-H program relies on volunteer educators to facilitate learning experiences, yet many report needing practical training in lesson planning, child development, and facilitation. To address this, we developed the UC 4-H Volunteer Educators’ Guide and a facilitation-ready training package, then delivered a statewide virtual series in 5 cohorts, each with 4 evening sessions covering content from the guide. We analyzed participant surveys collected at registration (true-pre) and immediately post-session using a retrospective-pre to post design aligned to explicit learning objectives from the guide. Across cohorts, attendees reported moderate to large gains on indicators tied to belonging, developmental relationships, experiential facilitation, age-appropriate practice, and authentic youth leadership. Retrospective-pre means were consistently higher than true-pre means, suggesting response recalibration after instruction; we therefore use retrospective-pre to post as the primary estimate of session-related change and true-pre to characterize registrants. Findings support a practical, scalable model that 4-H professionals may pair with local follow-ups to reinforce application.