Inside UGA Fanning’s Blueprint For Youth Leadership That Works: Part #1

Want proof that high school leadership doesn’t have to be performative or reserved for a select few? We sit down with the team at UGA’s JW Fanning Institute for Leadership Development to unpack a model that helps teens lead right now—no jargon, no fluff, just practical skills and real opportunities. From the pressures students feel about college and careers to the confidence they gain through strengths-based coaching, we trace how a research-backed framework turns anxiety into agency.

We walk through Youth Lead Georgia, a competitive, zero-cost statewide cohort fueled by philanthropic support, complete with four immersive retreats and a summer bus tour. You’ll hear how the companion summer summit widens access, inviting at least one student from every Georgia county to explore leadership, college pathways, technical education, the military, and the workforce—without prescribing a single “right” future. Then we dive into the school-based Youth Leadership in Action curriculum, a flexible K–12 program that moves students through mastery of self, mastery of relationships, and mastery of action. Think community mapping, conflict skills, and team problem-solving that culminate in student-led projects with measurable impact.

Oconee County High School joins to share how they customized the modules, shifted to peer-led applications and interviews, and saw students ask for encore sessions to push their legacy work further. The thread through it all is facilitation that centers student voice: educators can bring Fanning in to lead, or get trained to run the program themselves. If you care about student belonging, behavior, and achievement—and you want a blueprint that works in both rural and metro districts—this conversation is your roadmap.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:04

Welcome to Gale. We're a leader of the other conversation. Real impact. I'm Dan Wiggins, Executive Director of Gale. Join us as we go beyond the headlines with Georgia's top education leaders. Let's elevate the conversation. Welcome, Gail family. We have some wonderful guests with us today from the University of Georgia Fanning Institute and one special guest from a very, very fantastic high school or so out here. But Jason, will you start us off and introduce yourself and then we'll start go down the line?

Meet UGA Fanning And Its Role

SPEAKER_02 0:46

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks so much, Ben, for having us on, and to Gail for the opportunity. As Ben said, my name is Jason Edwards, and I'm a public service faculty member at the University of Georgia's JW Fanning Institute for Leadership Development. And just to give you a quick overview of what the Fanning Institute does, we are a part of the university's Tripart mission. University of Georgia and any land grant, C Grant Institute is going to be committed to three things: excellence in teaching, excellence in research, and excellence in public service and outreach. And the Fanning Institute is housed right that public service and outreach division. And so what we are charged with doing is serving as the bridge to communities back to the university as a unit. And we are one of eight units, and what we do at the Fanning Institute is leadership development. So I have a faculty appointment, but I don't teach traditional college courses. What I do is I develop training and education around leadership development. And we do that kind of with four groups. One being with youth programs, and this is why Miss Mafio is here today, is we got a chance and opportunity to work with her students. We work with adults a lot of times in Chamber of Commerce type programs, like a Leadership Athens or a Leadership Fulton group. We have a few nonprofit former directors on our faculty who help nonprofits, whether it's technical assistance or board governance training, and then even have a few attorneys who do mediation and conflict resolution. And so the whole idea of it is though that we are a people-serving, a community-serving organization that works directly with an individual organization kind of based on their needs. And so just felt like that was important to give you a kind of a lay of the land here.

unknown 2:25

Yeah.

Why Youth Leadership Matters Now

SPEAKER_00 2:26

Thanks, Jason. I'm Lauren Healy, also with the JW Fanning Institute for Leadership Development over our youth programs and our conflict transformation and dialogue programs. And I, along with Jason, provide oversight over our youth programs, and that involves everything from developing curriculum resources to working directly with youth and also working with schools and organizations and planning effective youth leadership programs.

SPEAKER_01 2:53

And I'm Kelly Mafia. I am one of the assistant principals at Oconee County High School, which Mr. Wiggins alluded to as the best high school in the nation. So I work with all of our students, but I a few years ago we started a student leadership team, and so that is one of my passions at the high school.

SPEAKER_03 3:16

Fantastic. All right. Well, talk to us a little bit. Maybe we start with Jason, but any of you jump in there. Why is youth leadership development so important for Georgia schools?

SPEAKER_02 3:27

Yeah, I mean, you know, I I think it really comes down to three things. Um and I think right now our our high school students, you know, post-pandemic still uh expectations of figuring out what they're supposed to do with their lives is is a great stressor. In fact, Lauren and I, we just got back from a conference um in in Virginia, which was all about university community engagement. And and one thing that we had had done was write, wrote a research poster kind of on the top five issues impacting teens across Georgia based on a on a summit that we recently held that we'll talk a little bit more about on the show. Um but there's just a great sense of pressure. Um, and that was the number one um outcome from from these students, these uh listening sessions and focus groups that we had held, um, that I have to figure out like what I'm gonna do with my life. There's this pressure that I have to get into a really great college, right? Um, and so I I think for young people that's that's that's a great burden to carry. And so it's a great burden to carry for adults. Um but leadership development really goes kind of back to to three things. It's one understanding that you have gifts, right? Your gifts really matter, your strengths matter. Um, and in fact, we do exercises with the students to help them even kind of think about what their gifts are and how vital they are to their their school communities and their home communities and their families. Um so so there's that. Um the second thing is is growth, right? Um, you know, we are intentional about using the the stretch zone. You know, we don't want to overload students right away with so much, but we want to put them in a in a an area that'll challenge them healthily. Um and and leadership development, intentional leadership development allows you to do that. Um and the last thing kind of goes back to that first point is grace, you know, realizing that we are all in this together. You know, we're leadership is a people business, it it's messy at times, um, it it requires some intentional navigation and some some healthy conflict resolution at times. And these are all things that you get to learn um, you know, through our curriculum, uh with us, um, and and ultimately just gets the students realizing I don't have to be perfect, right? You know, I'm I'm I'm fine just how I am and the person that I am and the gifts that I have really do matter. They contribute, they make a difference. Um, and yeah, I think it's just it's a great tool for young people who are really trying to navigate kind of you know that season of adolescence and in those teenage years.

SPEAKER_03 6:00

Yeah.

unknown 6:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:01

Either of you want to jump in and sure.

Youth Lead Georgia: Statewide Model

SPEAKER_00 6:03

Um, I would just like to add that one of our fundamental messages that we share with the youth that we work with is that um being a youth leader is not something that you do in the future. Youth leadership is today, right? We're not training youth to be leaders in the future. We are working with youth to be leaders now and really building up those skills that they can use today and take agency over their own life to have some self-determination over the things that happen to them. And we know that those have positive outcomes, not only um in the school's environment, but also in their communities. Um, we're seeing increases in academic achievement, decreases in problem behaviors, um, a lot of feeling of ownership and belonging in their communities and their schools. So there's some positive impacts at the school level, but also in the community level as well. And um and so that's something that I think kids can really get behind, and it's building up those individual level factors that are having a broader outreach.

SPEAKER_01 7:07

And I think it too is helping kids get plugged in where they wouldn't typically get plugged in. Um they're they're learning that youth leadership applies to all students, it's not just a particular group of students. And back to one of Jason's points, um, post-pandemic, I think kids need to learn how to build those relationships and work together and communicate with each other. And through programs like the one through the Fanning Institute, um, they're they're getting those skills.

SPEAKER_03 7:38

Jason, why don't you talk to us about two of the programs that Fanning has? Uh one being the Youth Lead Georgia and the other the youth leadership in action. Talk about the the curriculum or uh or the process for both of those.

SPEAKER_02 7:52

Why don't I kick that youth lead Georgia over to Lauren and then I'll happy to kind of walk us through the curriculum a little bit. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 7:58

Okay. So Youth Lead Georgia is a program that uh started about three years ago through a generous gift from Chick-fil-A, who was interested in having a youth or a statewide youth leadership program. A lot of our traditional youth leadership programs are community-based or school-based. And so they wanted to scale our traditional youth leadership programs to serve the entire state of Georgia. And so there's two components of the Youth Lead Georgia program. One is a cohort-based program where students are nominated and they apply, and we select 30 students to participate in a year-long cohort-based program. We have just selected our third cohort for 2026, and so we have had 58 youth complete that program and uh representing 41 unique counties. And every year, our traction in that program has continued to go up. And we credit Gale in large part for our continu the increases we're seeing in nominations, the increases that we're seeing in applications. And this year, for example, we had a 66% conversion rate between nominations and applications. And I know that that is because the word is getting out about youthly Georgia and the interest is continuing to grow across the state. So unfortunately, we can only take 30 youth from the this year. We had 373 applications. Yes. And so it's very competitive. Uh, wish we could take them all, but um, so that's one part of Youthly Georgia. And um, the other part is we have a statewide youthly Georgia summit that happens every summer. And our goal there is to have at least one student from every county across the state. So ideally, we would have at least 159 students, um, but we could take more, potentially, it is on campus. And uh that's our effort to try to reach more students. And so we've had two of those so far, and we've had 245 youth participate in that summit, representing 116 unique counties. And so those are the two opportunities, but really the objectives for both of those is to expose youth across the state to leadership development, to um career exploration, to college awareness, and that's everything from universities to technical colleges to the military to the workforce. Um, we don't prescribe what the next step is for youth across the state, but again, it's to develop that capacity for Georgia leaders well into the future. And um again, like I said, we're in our third year and we're continuing to improve our outreach and broaden our outreach, and so we have a lot of confidence that that'll continue to grow into the future. That's great.

Cost, Access, And Timeline

SPEAKER_03 11:00

And so we've got uh high school principals watching this, middle school principals are important too. They begin to see that development and see the potential in students, uh superintendents out there listening and watching. So the important question a lot of them have on their mind is well, how much does this cost if my student is selected?

SPEAKER_00 11:19

Yes, that is a great question. Because of our partnership with Chick-fil-A, we are able to offer this opportunity at no cost. Um, so they get the four, the cohort program, they get four weekend retreats all across the state and a three-night, four-day summer bus tour that's provided at no cost to the students. Now they are responsible for their transportation to and from the weekend retreats and the bus tour, but everything that happens during the sessions is covered by the the partnership with Chick-fil-A. And I would like to tell you, Miss Mafio, that we've had um some applicants from Oconee County High School as well and North Oconee but high Oconee County High School as well. Yeah.

Inside The Curriculum: Self, Relationships, Action

SPEAKER_03 12:02

Um Jason, talk a little bit about uh the curriculum for that. Let's start with the the youth leadership.

SPEAKER_02 12:08

Sure. And just uh to highlight and echo Lauren's point, Gail has been a tremendous partner in getting the word out there. We really care about getting representation across the state. Um, and Gail has been able to get us into contact uh with folks who are maybe over in Southeast Georgia or you know, southwest Georgia that might be a little further from the university. So um, as Lauren said, each year our numbers essentially almost nearly double in terms of nominations and application, and we know that's a a huge part because of the of what you guys do and how you're promoting the program. So we appreciate that. Um but going back to kind of the kind of a traditional way that we kind of partner uh with schools is through um our youth leadership in action program. Um and and Kelly will, I'm sure, will talk about that here in a in a moment as well. Um But what we what we have developed at the Fanning Institute is a uh leadership development curriculum specifically for youth that was was written in-house, it's it's grounded in research, and it's um, you know, uh in alignment with the Georgia standards of of uh excellence as well. Um and so really kind of the curriculum is aligned into three areas. Um one question that we often get asked at the Fanning Institute is what is the Fanning Institute's definition of leadership, right? And we're very we're very hesitant to give it a definition. And we even get the kids to think about why is that, right? It's because if I went around the table right now, all of us would probably have some great variance and and definitions because leadership, you know, is it's it's dependent on, you know, values, it's dependent on, you know, um your beliefs, kind of, but what you what what you kind of see is some of some core actions that effective leaders are able to do. And what we get the students to think about is effective leaders know how to master three areas. It's the mastery of themselves, they understand what their strengths are, but they're vulnerable enough to look at themselves in the mirror and say, hey, I have some growth areas, you know. I I I need I need some help, um, some further development. Um, it's it's mastery of relationships. So if you find that your leadership journey is lonely, you are you are surely doing it wrong and will burn out. Um so it's we need people, right? Leadership's a people business, and we get things done when we work together. Um, and and so they learn about that mastery of relationships. And the last thing is is kind of a call to action, is a mastery of action. Um, and so the way that our curriculum kind of ends is kind of a call to action. You know, we we we celebrate the vaning is too. We want to give students a nice certificate and and uh celebrate the the time and investment that they put into their own leadership development, but that's the beginning of the work, it's not the end. Um, and so we get students to think about what's the project they want to take on in the school or in their community. Um, and so the the way the curriculum is kind of structured um is in in our we have K through five, our K through 12 different adaptations. So obviously, you know, um our we have our our K through two students and three through five students actually have different activity guides um that that we we um roll with them through. The modules are obviously a little bit shorter, you know, than our our six through twelve um curriculum. Um but everything we do is is we use the word facilitation, you know. Um we we are not the teachers, right? We we're a teacher's the master of the kind of the the progression, the content, right? Um as facilitators, we make the students kind of the the master of the problem. So a lot of our our work, you know, you'll see us get up around the room. Students are in you know different activities, you know, throughout the time that they they spend in our modules, whether it's in thinkpair shares or it's you know a group solving uh problem activity, um, whatever it might be. Um and so uh our K through uh our six through 12 curriculum, a little bit more um in depth. And so we have actually 33 instructional hours of content that we can do um with the students, and we break it up into eight modules. So we start with that mastery of self, where they're understanding kind of what their gifts are, growth areas are, um, to how they communicate, right? Um and then as we kind of transition into mastery of relationships, well, you know, we know middle and high schoolers never have conflict, right? So we we have a whole module on that, um, but you know, um appreciating differences, what highly affection, you know, functioning teams do. Um and then even that kind of goes into our last portion of that mastery of action of, you know, what are what are some assets and strengths of my community? You know, we even do some community mapping with them where they're reflecting on on things that make their community great, but also what's areas that could be improved, right? Um, and and that last one is is kind of all about like that personal kind of action plan. What are you gonna do about it now? Kind of the the now what that you've been through this. Um so and and we kind of have two different ways we partner. So we can come in and and like with Kelly, we have worked with Kelly's team uh students directly um and we can would facilitate the content. Um Lauren and I are both former educators, so we we love to work with students. In fact, that's most of us at Fanning love to get in the car and go to communities and work. Um but we have resources to train um educators as well in our curriculum, if that was something of interest and you know, uh, of them facilitating it and using our license and resources. Lauren, did you want to add to that?

SPEAKER_00 17:17

Or oh go ahead. Oh no, that was great. Perfect, right?

SPEAKER_03 17:20

What is the talk about the timeline for the uh applications, maybe real quick, for the youth lead? When is that application?

SPEAKER_00 17:27

Um so for the youth lead Georgia program, those we start accepting nominations in May and take those through August. And then the application period is from September 1st to September 30th. And then we take those applications and send them out to an external selection committee and remove all identifying characteristics, and then those applications are graded, and we go through that and select the cohort and announce them. We actually announced our cohort last week. Um, but something that's very timely right now is our youth lead Georgia Summit. We're going to be putting out the call for applications in January. And so any rising 10th and 11th grade students, we would love to have them go ahead and apply. And then we will be accepting those applications through the spring.

SPEAKER_03 18:19

And your goal, I'll make sure that our members heard that and that I understood correctly. But your goal is you would love to have a student represent each school district county in the state.

SPEAKER_00 18:30

Yes. At least one student from every county in the state.

School Partnership Pathways

SPEAKER_03 18:34

And that cost again. No cost. So we'll be communicating that via Gail to uh high school principals and superintendents for you in January to help get that word out. Why don't we move on to Kelly to talk a little bit about um how Okona County High School came about this? I I think I remember Kelly when she was teaching there, maybe doing the Chick-fil-A Leadership Academy for us. Yes. So how did that blossom into this with Fanning?

Oconee High’s Journey And Selection

SPEAKER_01 19:02

Yeah, so we started, like Mr. Wien said, with the Chick-fil-A Leadership Um Academy. And it was good. It was a good way for us to kind of dip our feet into student leadership, and then we knew that we wanted to grow. So we actually started visiting some different schools with um student leadership teams and seeing what they do, and some of them were just like this huge thing that it was overwhelming to think about how we could ever get there. Um, and then others were more manageable and had um you know a smaller population of students, and so then we I don't even know how Jason and I met. Um but Jason and I met.

SPEAKER_00 19:45

Jason's everywhere.

Outcomes, Buy‑In, And Student Legacy

SPEAKER_01 19:48

And at the time I don't I I don't think he was actually working with the Fanning Institute, and then a couple of years later, um, our paths crossed again with um our Principal at the time, Kevin Yancey, and he kind of brought Jason back in and said, you know, hey, he's doing this youth leadership um program. So what do you think this is something we can use? And so Jason and I started talking, and he probably at the beginning thought I was very annoying because it was a lot of a lot of questions. Um, and just trying to figure out if this is the direction we wanted to go because we had invested in some other programs, and you know, a couple of months in, we were like, this isn't right for our student population and then our community, and so Jason was very willing to come in and sit down with us and just kind of go through the curriculum. And then even after he left, I remember having more questions about the curriculum. And do we have to do all the modules, or can we choose which modules we think our students need? And so um I really feel like the program was in the end tailored to the needs of the students at Oconee County High School. Um, and then we have a group of we try to have 30 kids each year. Um, and we start out when we started, I should say that, we had our teachers nominate kids for the student leadership team, and we had some different criteria. And over the years, um, our student leaders have actually we talk a lot about leaving a legacy. So, what is it when you're not here on the student leadership team anymore? What is it that you want to leave behind? And I guess two years ago now, the senior group they decided that they wanted to start holding interviews for our student leaders and um an application process. And so we um one of our counselors at the high school and I are the ones who oversee everything, and we just kind of left it up to them like what do you want your questions to be? How do you want your interview process to be? And they came up with some some great things, and they for the past two years have led interviews, and so we still rely on Chick-fil-A Leader um for our ninth graders. We want them to kind of dip their feet in at that point, and then when and they know what student leadership is, then when they become 10th graders, if they want to apply to the um OCHS student leadership team, they can go through that application process, they go through interviews. Um, and we we have limited our numbers to 30, really because that that seemed to be a nice sweet spot for being able to do things within the school, but also pour into those students. And that that's been one of my big things. I feel like we kind of started out our student leadership team with um, we were using them a lot and they weren't getting anything from it, and so I wanted them to learn and grow, and so I kept like saying to our principal and our counselor, like, we need to pour into them, like they're pouring into the school a lot, and we need to do more to pour into them. And so I feel like that's what Jason brought last year. Um, it was our first year doing the program, and um the kids ate it up. Um, I was hesitant at first, I hate to say that, but um they absolutely loved it. They were all in from that very first meeting, and there was nothing that was like too cheesy to do. Um, they they just wanted to take part and do all of it. Um, to the point that this year they've asked, can he come back and do another session? Because we we left off with that, how are we gonna feed into the community now? And um, and we had a great discussion with that with our last module, but they now are like, we we needed kind of a refresher, and if if an outsider who doesn't know what's really going on at the school could come in and lead us through that process, that would be great. So that's kind of where we are is getting back into it for to continue our journey. Yeah.

Customization Beyond One‑Size‑Fits‑All

SPEAKER_03 24:17

Well, you know, this is so good. I think we this is gonna be a great two-part uh podcast. But before we wrap up part one, Jason Kelly mentioned that the curriculum she felt like was almost tailored to the students at O'Conee County High School and the community. Talk a little bit about that. It doesn't sound like it's a one-size-fits-all.

SPEAKER_02 24:39

Yeah, no, uh we we pride ourselves at the Fanning Institute that we are um client serving, people serving their challenges in rural Georgia just as much as there are in Metro. Um and what we can do at the Fanning Institute, though, is we can use the resources of the university to respond to what communities need. So, you know, like Kelly, even though her group might have, you know, graduated through our you know uh youth leadership in action curriculum, her and I can work together and she may say, hey Jason, I want you to come in and do a refresher on what it means to to leave a legacy and and to maybe get us to think about, walk us through a brainstorming process of what's something actionable that we can take away. But you know, we could customize training on adaptive leadership. I mean, just any leadership topic, we're able to do it because we have the skills, the resources, and we have trained facilitators who know how to do it. So um, while while the the curriculum might be a nice guide for people, a a starting point, that's really kind of what it is. Those are like kind of the foundational, um, but we can certainly move outside of the curriculum as well to develop and um you know uh facilitate training around whatever the communities might need.

SPEAKER_03 25:47

Well, this has been a fascinating part one. I can't wait to hear part two as we dive into more of these two leadership programs so that our Gale members can hear some specific examples of what the students are able to do, what they get out of it, and for the school leadership team like Kelly has at O'Conee County High School. I'm really looking forward to hearing some of the specifics that they're doing and what their students are learning from that. Absolutely. So thank you, Gale members, for joining, and we'll see you for part two for the UGA Fanning Institute.