Merit Badges

[SpecialScouting]

Basement -- you'd be wrong.

 

All of the boys in my troop have moderate to severe special needs. Currently, our oldest boys are 12. At the parent meeting we were looking through the merit badges trying to find 2-3 that all of our boys were capable of accomplishing as we want them to feel that pride in their efforts. We noticed that some of them had overlap and wondered how that was handled.

 

Ideally, we'd like to have each boy earn a merit badge and a participation badge (from council event, etc) for each court of honor (every 3-4 months). Our boys don't typically earn awards (outside of Special Olympics) and they see other scouts with all the patches and they want to try.

 

Will we have a boy make Eagle? Idk, maybe in 6-7 years, a very big maybe. That isn't the point. Our goal is to create an atmosphere where boys whose disabilities are too severe to truly participate in a regular troop still get the joy, pride and friendship of Boy Scouts.

[John-in-KC]

SS,

 

I hope you have are working with your District and Council special needs committees. I'd also hope you are talking with your District Advancement Chair. He/she should have a very good idea of the MB Counselors in your district, and their strengths/weaknesses.

 

If you're not, contact your unit or district commissioner.

 

This is a case where you want the best "people persons" you can find.

[Tampa Turtle]

We have doubled dipped on a few requirements like the endless CPR ones for aquatics if the MB (like Motorboating and Small Boat Sailing) were done concurrently AND if the boys could demonstrate upon request. If there was a time delay I would not.

 

I know at Summer Camp of a boy doing 3 aquatics and only doing the CPR once (but it was a bit of a MB factory).

 

In general I do not like double-dipping. I think repetition is good. We have a boy who joined early got Totin Chit instruction. Lost Chit was made to a 2nd time. Went to Summer Camp and was in 1st year program did it a 3rd time. It now seems to be sinking in...

 

I find the parents are the worst at lawyering and gaming the system to fast track requirements; in three cases I can think of ex-cub leaders who take this approach with their scouts.

[SpecialScouting]

Thanks John. Our council doesn't have a special needs committee yet but I am meeting with our advancement chair next month to touch base on how our boys are doing and get advice on planning the rest of the year. We are definitely going through our Merit Badge Counselor list with a cautious eye. We need creative people who understand that they may need to spend double the time they normally would with the boy(s) in addition to the support we will give them. We have two outstanding MBCs already onboard. Neither of them have boys in our troop but both have experience with a moderately disabled family member so they 'get it'.

 

I'm really hoping that we can idenfity a dozen MBCs that would be good with our boys so that it is a positive experience for everyone and the boys will have a large selection of merit badges with good MBCs so that they can pick the ones they want to work on outside of the ones the troop will work on together. (I was dismayed to see how many people are MBCs for 25+ badges -- seriously? an expert in all that???)

 

I'm attending my first Roundtable in a few weeks. The person in charge of it (I forgot his title) asked me to do a presentation on supporting scouts with special needs cause he knows many of the troops have boys with special needs and are struggling to support them. It feels a little weird to be both a first time Scoutmaster and a presenter

[Basementdweller]

SS....

 

Your special needs scouts can have as long as they need to earn eagle. All you need to do is keep filing for the extensions. We have a MRDD gentleman in our district who earned his at 28 years old.

 

Special needs means so many things to so many people. I met a special need boy who I couldn't see a thing wrong with him, behavior or otherwise and the otherside of the spectrum We have a young man with palsey who has a significant handicap communicates via an application on an ipad....before he had a handheld txt to speech converter.

 

I was hoping you were not just going to jam them thru and I am glad,

[boomerscout]

Doesn't it depend on the specific mb? Several have mentioned Pets and Dog Care

Pets

1.Present evidence that you have cared for a pet for four months. Get approval before you start.*

* Work done for other merit badges cannot be used for this requirement

Dog Care

4.For two months, keep and care for your dog.*

* The activities used to fulfill the requirements for the Dog Care merit badge may not be used to help fulfill requirements for other merit badges.

Sports: Note: The activities used to fulfill the requirements for the Sports merit badge may not be used to help fulfill requirements for other merit badges.

 

 

 

[John-in-KC]

SS,

 

Contact your DE. Ask for a business meeting with the Council Professional responsible for special needs. If there is not a committee of volunteers, then all the duties devolve onto a Professional.

 

If you get the runaround, go to your Council website, find the President of your Council, and ask your COR to have a businesslike chat with him.

 

The Charter Agreement says that the local Council will provide the resources you need. It's their side of the bargain.

[clemlaw]

Well, as I mentioned above, I'm not a MBC for Dog Care or Pets (nor should I be), so my advice on that particular example is wrong--the footnotes make the requirement pretty clear. If they have one dog, then it will take six months to earn both MB's. But if they borrow someone else's dog for two months, then they can do both at the same time. :-)

[Beavah]

Yah, I'm with Basementdweller on this for the most part. And troop leader's have to be involved just so boys (or parents) don't game the system with different MBCs, eh? Like the Dog Care/Pet Care thing, where the requirements specify no double dipping. But how is the MBC to know that the lad used his time for another MB? The troop needs to be involved somewhere along the line to make sure that doesn't happen.

 

Red Cross requires CPR recert every year, eh? It's not a once-and-done. Don't see why the requirement should be a once-and-done in Scouting either. I at least would appreciate the lads actually knowing what to do when I keel over in camp some day.

 

I think that double dipping is particularly bad for things like service hours. Might just be me, but that feels really slimy. A lad with any honor and commitment to the Oath and Law should be offerin' service over and above the little bit that is required, and should not expect multiple awards for one act of service. Similarly, I don't think a boy should really expect 3 awards for one season of sports training (Athletics, Sports, and Personal Fitness). The repetition is healthy, working through the full badge with different counselors (and thereby learnin' different aspects of things) is good, doin' the work to fully earn each badge you wear is honorable.

 

So I don't have any problem with unit expectations on this sort of stuff, because the individual MBCs aren't in a position to really know that the lad is double-dipping, to be able to make an informed choice. It's the kind of mentoring that falls in the Scoutmaster's realm.

 

Beavah

 

[packsaddle]

"Might just be me, but that feels really slimy."

Me too. However, it seems to be a robust component of our 'time-management' culture. The ethic taught by the 'double dipping' approach is that you can get out of having to do more work by lining things up in a way that creates the maximum overlap and that this is good. This IS a good thing if you're designing an assembly line to manufacture thingamajigs in the most efficient manner. Do the words, 'Eagle mill' come to anyone's mind?

Such optimization naturally leads to the desire to have a single MBC cover multiple similar MB's so that all he has to do is cross-reference what was done before to eliminate the need to do it this time. I will tell you this, in MY classroom it is called 'cheating'. If I make a writing assignment, with the instruction to create a new and original response, and detect that it was merely plagiarized from a previous assignment, my reaction does not adhere to the Scout Law. (yes, we have the tools to detect such things)