De1stBeast

I've been involved with the White Stag program since 1995. The program was first developed in 1958, in the Monterey Bay Area Council. The founders of White Stag developed 11 leadership competencies. The national council heard about the program and used the leadership competencies in the national JLT program. The skills were in use by the BSA until the creation of NYLT. However, the focus of the program is not on teaching leadership skills, but ensuring that participants LEARN the leadership skills. A lot of attention is placed on developing challenging activities in which participants can apply their newly learned skills. Also, the entire program is taught in an outdoor setting where participants learn outdoor skills as well. The program developed from a one level program into three phases. Phase 1 teaches Patrol Member Development. Phase 2 teaches Patrol Leader Development (which very similar to most JLT programs). Phase 3 teaches Troop Leader Development. White Stag sees leadership development not as something that is taught in one week, but a skill that must be repeatedly learned and applied. In fact, the people that get the most out of the program are the youth staff, who develops the entire program each year during 10 staff development meetings. The youth staff practice teaching leadership skills, develop goals and objectives for their program, and put together a full week of activities. Instead of participants just going to one training week like normal JLT (now NYLT) programs, we love it when a youth goes through phase 1, 2, and 3. Participants grow in each phase and their leadership skills become even more honed. But the best path is when a youth goes through the phases as a participant, then again as a youth staff member. Also, because phase 3 caters to Venture scouts, we have youth staff as old as 20 sharing untold years of experience with participants. I love the continuous self development White Stag provides instead of the wham-bam-thank-you-maam of a typical NYLT program.