Positive Youth Development I Diana Hammer, Youth Development Educator
Planning a kickoff event for an eventual Youth Leadership Team in collaboration with Sheboygan County Youth Justice. The goal is to engage justice-impacted young people in a club that they shape and have ownership of in order to grow their leadership skills and potentially inform YJ procedures.
Young people who have been involved with the legal system are rarely asked for their opinion on how the system works or for recommendations on how it could be improved. Sheboygan County’s Youth Justice Office has received state funding to engage current and former clients in a Youth Leadership Team and has asked Extension to help with group design and facilitation. Hammer and YJ colleague Jessica Bitter promoted a fun gathering this summer as a potential YLT kick-off, but no youth RSVP’d for this. Changing strategies, they decided to pick a topic to start from and try again. Research shows that people involved in the legal system have many characteristics suitable for business ownership, so Hammer suggested introducing the group to area business owners. In a meeting with Whitney Viglietti, Bitter & Hammer discussed the goals and made a plan to host the first meeting at their businesses. Students will get a tour, eat a delicious meal, meet people they might work with someday, and learn about navigating through failures and successes. So far, 8 students have RSVP’d for the gathering on 10/29/26.