In our council the past few years we
have started a merit badge mentoring
program for our summer camp. The
mentors are adult merit badge
counselors who provide guidance and
resources in their area of expertise.
Our summer camp is made up of
several subcamps and their was some
concern about making sure the merit
badge material was being covered
thoroughly and consistently through
out all of camp. The actual mentoring takes place during staff
training week and starts with a
breakfast and deviding of the staff
up by areas to then work with the
volunteer mentors for those areas.
For Example: Aquatics, Ecology,
Scoutcraft, Shooting Sports etc.
The mentoring also involves former
staff volunteering to mentor the new
staff. In my experience someone
under 18 can teach a merit badge as
well or better than some adults.
They get real good at it as the summer progresses along.
The camp staff are all provided with
a folder with the current merit badge
requirements, previous course syllibi
and a blank syllibi to taylor to their own schedule. A big part of
our role as mentors is to offer
encouragement, resources and handouts
and to share teaching methods, ideas
and props.
I usually will visit the staff that
I helped mentor earlier in the summer
when my Troop is in camp. They really appreciate the extra help with
the merit badge sessions and also
constructive praise or critisism on
their efforts. This summer I had a
staff counselor Thank me for making
his classes this summer a fun and
rewarding experience. He really
appreciated some additional handouts
that were sent up to camp as the
summer progressed along.
You should always monitor the merit
badge classes that your Scouts have
signed up for and make sure the
requirements and material along with
additional outside class requirements
are being followed up on by your Scouts. For example: Astronomy - Are
they observing the night sky and are
the conditions clear for viewing the
night sky. If not then those Scouts
should end up with a partial in
Astronomy merit badge.
I hope this helps with improving
merit badge standards at your summer
camps for next year. Your camp
director needs to support this effort
along with having area directors 18
or older to sign the actual merit badge cards for the underage counselors in their areas.
