Overview of the ES-237 Report

What is the ES-237 report?

The Extension Services-237 (ES-237) is a report of the Cooperative Extension Service that consists of enrollment statistics for youth ages 5–18 participating in Extension youth programs and the volunteers providing service to these programs. Family Nutrition Programs (FNP) are the only youth Extension programs that are exempt from ES-237 reporting. In Florida, an annual ES-237 report is completed by each UF/IFAS county Extension office. County reports are submitted to Florida 4-H state headquarters where they are compiled into a single state report and submitted to the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) at the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).

Why is the ES-237 report important?

Cooperative Extension is part of the USDA. Partial funding for Extension youth programs is received through the USDA. To receive this funding, each county and state must report each year on the race, gender, grade, and residence of each participant in these programs.

4HOnline and the ES-237 report

Florida Agents and staff use 4HOnline (https://florida.4honline.com), a web-based enrollment system, to complete individual county ES-237 reports. 4HOnline is designed so that the ES-237 data automatically populates in each county's report as member, volunteer, and group enrollments are entered. Although 4HOnline does all the sorting and calculating, it is important for county agents and staff to be familiar with the different sections of the ES-237 and how to enter enrollments accurately. State Extension specialists conducting youth programs should contact the state 4-H information management coordinator for access to 4HOnline ES-237 reporting.

How do I access my county ES-237 report?

Log into 4HOnline as the county manager. Click on the Enrollment tab and then click on the Reports button. Click on Standard. Make sure the year is set to the current 4-H year. Right click on ES-237 (All Reports) and click Export to a PDF. This will download your report.

Ways to use the ES-237 report

The ES-237 report is not just a report. It is also a tool that can be used to compare multiple years of enrollment statistics to easily identify increases or decreases in membership, volunteer retention percentages, project enrollment numbers and other trends in participation. It is an important document in evaluating the participation and interests of a county's youth development program; particularly for your 4-H advisory and expansion and review committees.

ES-237 Section 1: 4-H Delivery Modes

Florida Agents use a variety of methods and locations for reaching youth ages 5–18 with opportunities that help them grow and develop in positive ways. Table 1 lists the delivery modes reported to the ES-237 report and how youth participation is reported for each delivery mode in 4HOnline, either through an "individual youth enrollment" or a "group enrollment." For example, youth participating in organized 4-H clubs can only be reported through individual youth enrollments, and youth participating in camps can only be reported through group enrollments.

The Extension program must provide the youth with six or more hours of educational programming to be included in the ES-237 report. A youth is reported to one of the delivery modes listed in Table 1 when he or she participates in a program provided as a result of action by Extension personnel (professional, paraprofessional, and/or volunteer). Notice that the delivery mode section of the ES-237 report counts youth only. Also, a youth can be counted more than once in this section. For example, a 4-H youth can be counted in a club delivery mode for his or her yearlong participation in a 4-H community club. This same youth can also be reported to the overnight camping delivery mode when he or she attends a 4-H residential camp. When a youth participates in a second program during the same program year, he or she is considered a duplicate.

Table 2 provides a description of the different ES-237 delivery modes. These are the national definitions and should be used to report youth participation on the ES-237 report.

What if a youth participates in an Extension program that is less than six hours?

Norman and Jordan (2012) define a youth participating in an Extension program of less than six hours as a "youth contact." Youth contacts can include programs conducted through 1862 and 1890 land-grant universities such as garden tours, field trips, career seminars, and similar short-term experiences. Since these programs are less than six hours long, they would not be included in the annual ES-237 report. However, agents can count these clientele contacts in their Reports of Accomplishments (ROA) workload data and/or in stakeholder reports. See Reporting Clientele Contacts in Workload (https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/wc058) for more information about clientele contacts.

ES-237 Sections 2 and 3: School Grade, Gender, Place of Residence, Ethnicity, and Race

When reporting youth to a delivery mode, whether through a member enrollment or group enrollment, 4HOnline asks for school grade, gender, place of residence, race, and ethnicity for each youth. Duplicates are not included in these sections of the ES-237 report. For example, using the earlier example of the club member who attends overnight camp, this youth is counted in both delivery modes, but is only counted once in the grade, gender, place of residence, race, and ethnicity sections of the ES-237. Since the youth is a club member, information is pulled from his or her member enrollment profile and added to these sections of the ES-237 report. When reporting this youth to the camp group enrollment, he or she would be counted as a duplicate. Keeping an accurate count of duplicate participants is beneficial to the agent, because it provides accurate information about the demographics of youth reached in the county. Tables 3, 4, and 5 provide more information about place of residence, ethnicity and race definitions.

ES-237 Section 4: Volunteers

The ES-237 report defines a volunteer as an adult or youth who provides unpaid support for youth Extension programs. The only volunteer-related information reported to the ES-237 is the number of youth volunteers and the number of adult volunteers that provided unpaid support for youth Extension programs in the current program year. There are two ways volunteers are reported to the ES-237 by 4HOnline. The first is through individual volunteer member profiles. If a youth or adult has an active member profile and has selected that he or she is a volunteer, 4HOnline counts them, automatically, to the ES-237 volunteer count. The second way to report volunteers is through a group enrollment. Only volunteers who do not have individual profiles in 4HOnline should be reported through a group enrollment. Also, a volunteer should not be counted on more than one group enrollment in the same program year. There is no way to remove duplicate/repeat volunteers on a group enrollment.

ES-237 Section 5: Projects

Projects are the planned sequence of age-appropriate and research-based learning opportunities youth experience when participating in one or more of the ES-237 delivery modes. Florida 4-H offers a wide array of projects. When enrolling a youth member, at least one project must be assigned to his or her profile. Multiple projects can be added to a youth profile. Once the youth enrollment is made active in 4HOnline, the youth's project is added to the overall project count. Projects can also be reported through group enrollments. The same youth may report multiple projects.

ES-237 Reporting Timeline

Annual county ES-237 reports for the ending 4-H year are due August 15. The Florida 4-H year is September 1 to August 31. If a county has a youth program occurring between August 15 and August 31, the county 4-H Agent should contact the state 4-H information management coordinator before August 15 for reporting instructions.

Further Information

Contact Florida 4-H state headquarters for further information about the ES-237 report and/or the 4HOnline enrollment system.

References

Kahler, J. (2013). Instructions for completing the state 4-H enrollment report. Washington D.C: NIFA National 4-H Headquarters

Norman, M. N., and Jordan, J. (2012). Understanding 4-H youth development delivery. Retrieved from https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/pdffiles/4H/4H23800.pdf.

Tables