Youth Safe Farm

Youth Safe Farm is an intensive community-based effort to educate and empower underserved Appalachian farm families to reduce farm injuries to youth.

Appalachian farms are typically small, hilly, economically marginal, and poorly served by educational institutions. Geographic isolation and low educational attainment contribute to persistent high rates of injuries to youth.

This innovative program is based on a social ecological model of health promotion. This model understands behaviors in the context of the interactions among the individual, the physical environment, and the social environment. The program is strongly rooted in research-based youth development principles.

Youth Safe Farm will recruit at least 13 families in each of five (5) underserved West Virginia farm communities to learn and work together to identify and control hazards for youths on their farms.

At regularly scheduled community meetings, youths and adults will learn and be empowered to employ graphic risk mapping to identify hazards to youths and propose controls and practices that will abate these hazards.

Subsequent meetings will be organized to report on hazard identification and control, to exchange successes and problems, and to provide motivation to continue to monitor and improve safety conditions.

Farms that complete the work of seven (7) meetings in two (2) years will receive a plaque suitable for outdoor mounting that designates the farm as West Virginia University Youth Safe Farm.

Families will conduct audits of farm conditions to monitor their progress toward their planned hazard control goals.

WVU is an EEO/Affirmative Action Employer -- Minority/Female/Disability/Veteran.
In accordance with Federal law and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) civil rights regulations and policies, this institution is prohibited from discriminating on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, age, disability, and reprisal or retaliation for prior civil rights activity. (Not all prohibited bases apply to all programs).
The WVU Board of Governors is the governing body of WVU. The Higher Education Policy Commission in West Virginia is responsible for developing, establishing, and overseeing the implementation of a public policy agenda for the state’s four-year colleges and universities.
Reasonable accommodations will be made to provide this content in alternate formats upon request. Contact the WVU Extension Service Office of Communications at 304-293-4222.