More than one million people were incarcerated in U.S. prisons at the end of June 1995. Increasing emphasis has been placed on inmate rehabilitation with society's realization that 95% of those incarcerated will be released from prison and returned to society. The responsibility of undertaking the rehabilitation process lies in part with vocational programs, one of which is horticulture. In addition to developing job skills, horticulture may provide another viable means of rehabilitation in the form of horticultural therapy. The women's Federal Prison Camp in Bryan, Texas, implemented the Master Gardener program as part of its vocational training program in March 1991. The prison's Master Gardener program is sponsored by the Texas Agricultural Extension Service and constitutes a horticultural therapy program. More than 225 inmates have completed the program; however, the effectiveness in inmate rehabilitation brought about by such programs has not been extensively documented. Consequently, our objectives were to determine the effects of participation in the Master Gardener program on the locus of control, self-esteem, and life satisfaction of female inmates. About 80 inmates were administered a pretest before the Master Gardener program and an identical posttest at its conclusion. The 55-item questionnaire included a biographical section, a locus of control inventory, a self-esteem inventory, and a life satisfaction inventory. Data were analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences. Results examine the relationship between the Master Gardener program and the psychological well-being of the female inmates at the Federal Prison Camp in Bryan, Texas.
In a time of budgetary constraints, reorganization of many extension services and other changes in the educational system, identifying and implementing non-traditional ways to deliver programming is a critical issue if extension is to continue to deliver quality, timely educational programs to clientele. Innovative methods that can be used to efficiently and economically deliver programming would be desirable and beneficial. This presentation will address how Mississippi State Univ. Extension Service, due to the changes listed above, is addressing the lack of extension instructors to teach the basic training curriculum of the Master Gardener (MG) program. In order to continue to meet the public demand for these classes and safeguard the integrity of the instruction, a new process of identifying, training and evaluating “senior” MG volunteers as instructors in the basic training curriculum of the program has been implemented. How this process was initiated and buy-in of administrators, county extension MG coordinators, volunteers and state specialists was established will be presented. The process of selecting, training, and evaluating of these MG certified educators would also be presented. Difficulties encountered with implementing this new system of program delivery utilizing volunteers in addition to the traditional specialist or agent instructor will be presented as well.
This research has been supported in whole or in part by the Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station. The terms Junior Master Gardener and JMG are service marks of Texas Agricultural Extension Service. The cost of publishing this paper
Data input by Master Gardeners: Karen Besaw, Kay Boone, Larry Joh, Lisa Skemp, Jennifer Tarplee, and Sandy Utley, New Hanover County. Recommendations for the use of agricultural chemicals are included in this publication as a convenience
The Master Gardener program was launched in Washington State in 1972 and has been established in all 50 states, Washington, DC, and several international locations. The program is based on three core concepts: helping local cooperative extension
knowledgeable consumer gardening group in six southeastern states to add to the information from previous surveys of landscape and nursery professionals within the region. Materials and methods Members of the Master Gardener programs in the southeastern United
We thank the Indiana and Illinois Extension Agents and Master Gardeners for their collaboration. This research was funded by the USDA-CSREES North Central IPM Program Grant number 01-34103-10265, Gardens Alive, and Integrated Biocontrol Systems, Inc
defined as: Junior Master Gardener (JMG) uses garden site or JMG is taught here 7 (13%), general tours, topic speakers, EMG are garden volunteers, programs for mentally challenged, 4H, none, “we are not the land grant university,” “our garden staff teach
system makes full use of volunteer statistics gathered by the VMS, creating an impressive display of the value of the EMG program to the state and county. Continuing education for extension master gardeners. Colorado State University requires that EMG
Extension Master Gardener volunteer programs have been in existence in the United States since 1972, in Canada since 1985, and in South Korea since 2011 ( Wonsuk and Durham, 2015 ). There are active programs in 49 states (Massachusetts does not have