Resentment about needing to get trained?!

[JMHawkins]

JMHawkins can you spread the rumor some more? What is the Wilderness FA requirements? That rumor hasnt filtered over to New Hampshire yet..

 

I'd rather not spread rumors since they might not come true, but to help you prepare for the contingency... G2SS recommends the 16-hour WFA training for backcountry trips. Assume recommendations eventually become requirements and plan accordingly! Work out a plan for how your troops get one or more SM/ASMs trained in the 16 hour course. The Red Cross supposedly offers a 30+ hour course that makes someone a qualified trainer, but it doesn't appear to be easy to get into that course, and it's expensive. When might this happen? No idea, that's the rumor part. But there's probably a long lead time in building out your capacity.

 

In the grand scheme of things, this is actually training that I'd be really excited to take (as much as I hate thinking about a boy being seriously injured far from help). I'd much rather spend 16 (or 30) hours doing this than standing around while one of the trainees reminds the trainer that you should check for widowmakers if you pitch your tent under a tree.

[Eagle92]

Currently, if you are doign a HA trip at a nationally accredited HA base, i.e. Phimont, FL Sea base, N Tier, PAMLICO SEA BASE (WWW.PAMLICOSEABASE.ORG ) and others, a WFA course is required.

 

 

 

Sorry I had to put in a plug.

[JMHawkins]

Sorry I had to put in a plug.

 

Eagle92, I hope you put in the plug before you launched the boat, otherwise it might sink in PAMLICO SOUND.

 

Sorry, had to put in a pun:)

 

 

[moosetracker]

Is that new? My son & husband went to FL sea base about 1 1/2 years ago, and there was no required extra training other the YPT had to be only 1 year or less ago, rather then 2 years or less to cover the Tour permit for 500 miles or more..

 

I did see the link describing Wilderness First Aid, but I looked at the G2SS, I found the piece about WFA being recommended in the trek safely area. Nothing about it being required for National HA places, but this could be something stated now when you sign up for these places..

 

I don't think I will worry about it from a "district Trainer perspective", the link describing WFA states to get the training at the american Red Cross, or Emergency Care and Safty institute.. Not "at a district training event".. If the Council ever did want to offer it I can see it being a training offered at council level, not at district level.

 

Will be a hardship for the units that want to participate in National HA, and maybe in the future other personal HA activities.. But as you said, at least the wont have the complaint of having to do Basic training that they are light-years ahead of.. Just the time element of it.

[Scoutfish]

JM, except for the marked channels, you could ALMOST wade cmpletely across Pamlico Sound to Hatteras and back to Oriental, Manteo, Cedar Island, etc..

[CalicoPenn]

Mandatory YPT training isn't an onerous requirement. The training isn't dependent on districts or councils offering up the training - it can be taken online, anytime, day or night, that someone has a bit of time to spare in front of a computer. Now there are still plenty of people without internet access at home but most local libraries offer internet access, and I can't imagine why folks in a unit who have computers with internet access wouldn't offer folks in a unit who don't have computers at home an opportunity to visit and use their computers for this. (oh, and don't forget your Den Chiefs - they are also required to take the on-line Youth Protection training now, or so I have read).

 

It's the other training requirements that are going to lead to interesting situations.

 

Initially, I suspect that in many cases, when a unit is "hammered" and has their charter denied, the reaction isn't going to be "OMG - I've got to be trained" - it's going to be "screw it, I'm out of here" and there will be units lost for lack of adults willing to volunteer, with a resulting drop in youth membership numbers - and at some point, if that happens more often than not, National may do a rethink.

 

Initially, I suspect that in many cases, experienced leaders who aren't on board with the mandatory training scheme, will just leave the program.

 

I suspect that units are going to start to complain that its harder and harder to get parents to volunteer if the Districts and Councils don't offer a lot of flexibility and opportunities to attend training.

 

I suspect that Districts and Councils, particularly the larger ones centered in and around heavy urban areas, will discover that they may have to start offering training sessions at least on a bi-monthly basis, if not a monthly basis, especially at the Cub Scout level, if they have any hope of the training requirements being met. For those that don't offer far more opportunities than they do, they'll discover that attendance at training is going to resemble lecture hall at state universities - think it's hard to find enough trainers to help with training 15 people? Find enough to train 100.

 

I suspect that eventually, many units will take advantage of the loopholes and have trained leaders in name only that aren't actually doing the job, but are on the charter as doing the job. We'll have people who were trained rechartering every year even if they are no longer doing the position or have left Scouting altogether with untrained leaders doing the real work.

 

Or, we will see incredible turnover in leaders, with brand new leaders for most positions being registered every year. New leaders will have 180 days (6 months) to get trained - but it's doubtful that Council will "catch" any of those folks until the next recharter period, at which time units might put someone new on the charter. And though the requirements state that units can only replace untrained leaders with leaders that are already trained, probably to prevent just such scenarios, the requirement also states that they can't replace leaders like this if the cause is because the prior leader couldn't or wouldn't get trained - hello opening big enough to drive a bus through: "I didn't give up Scoutmaster because I couldn't/wouldn't get training, I gave up Scoutmaster because my responsibilities at work have increased and I no longer have the time to give - now prove otherwise." Scoutmaster isn't being replaced because he didn't get training, he's being replaced because he no longer has time - the way I read the requirement, you can put a new Scoutmaster who still needs to be trained on the charter as long as the previous Scoutmaster isn't leaving because he hasn't been trained.

 

Then, after the next few years of confusion and upheaval, and if National holds firm and doesn't rethink making training mandatory to recharter, it will become such an ingrained part of the whole process that the folks won't even question it and compliance will be natural.

 

 

[JoeBob]

"The thing that's driving training just seems to be legal CMA not any demonstrated program benefit for the kids."

 

CONCUR!

 

I second John-in KC's concurrence.

 

After four years since coming back as a Scouter and eight or ten training classes, the only thing that I've actually learned in training is how to fill out paperwork.

If they actually taught something useful, I wouldn't view training as punishment.

[ScoutNut]

"(oh, and don't forget your Den Chiefs - they are also required to take the on-line Youth Protection training now, or so I have read)."

 

 

Where have you read this? Nothing is stated about Den Chiefs on the Youth Protection section of the BSA National Web site.

[shortridge]

There's mandatory training in GSUSA right now - within six months of registering, you have to take four training modules, one of which is online. The others last from 1-2 hours. They know their target audience: A few sessions were offered in the middle of the day, apparently tailored to work-at-home moms. (My experience was a bit more difficult, as I had to do a four-hour round trip to attend two of them because my work schedule didn't match up with the in-county sessions and I didn't want to have to wait until January.)

 

This does not include camp training, which my local council offers just twice a year (spring and summer). You have to complete that to take your troop camping - it's not mandatory to be considered a fully trained leader.

 

I'd be very interested to see if GSUSA has any statistics - or if any leaders here have any insight - into whether untrained leaders just drop out at that six-month mark, if there are a flurry of emergency training sessions held at the last minute to get those leaders trained, or just how that works in reality.

[shortridge]

On another topic, I just checked out my local BSA council's training schedule. For five months, from November to March, there are zero opportunities to take IOLS. I can understand not running a course around the holidays ... but to do nothing for nearly half the year strikes me as very, very odd.

[thriftyscout]

National would be well advised to look at the volunteer fire service as a model of how to maintain professional standards in a volunteer service. While rules vary from state to state, there are national standards in place created by the NFPA (National Fire Protection Association).

 

Most firefighters have some level of NFPA certification. In some states a certain level of continuing education (CE) is required to maintain that certification. The individual has some choice in what kind of CE they want to earn depending upon their needs and interests. There may be some baseline of subject matter that is mandatory but a 15 year veteran would not go back to basic fire training to recertify.

 

It would be fairly simple to create a short, online, and mandatory refresher course that would cover any recent rule, policy, or procedure changes. Then let veteran leaders select training of interest. First aid, CPR, kayaking, scuba certification, etc. Basically anything that helps ensure that they are the "qualified supervision" needed for an outing.

 

Just my $.02

[moosetracker]

That is typical for our council for district training in the Fall then again in the Spring There is training offered for Adult leaders while they are at summer camp programs.. Maybe different for the South, but in the north, for IOLS it is basic camping so it's not done in the snow & ice, BALOO the cubs can't camp in the winter, so we don't train the Adults in winter either, as some of the stuff is outdoors.. but that doesn't explain the down time for indoor trainings.. But it does happen.

Out council is holding an EDGE training in January.. I know way back when I was going to go to a Troop Commitee training that was canceled due to a snowstorm. So on rare occasions, there is a training or two in the winter time, but rarely. I think the summer is just down time because trainers will not commit their time to it at district level, and training is offered at summer camp, which even if you aren't going to camp, you can find out when it's offered and go to the camp to take it.

[ScoutNut]

John, your council is one of the twenty pilots, and it is requiring all DIRECT CONTACT leaders to be trained in 2010?

 

According to all of the information on the National Web site, the pilot councils were to require all TOP leaders to be trained by 12/31/10. All DIRECT CONTACT leaders had from 01/01/11 to 12/31/11, to get trained. From some of the later notices, it even sounded like, because of training record issues, National was extending the TOP leader trained requirement into 2011 as well.

 

Do you have any idea why your council is requiring all DIRECT CONTACT leaders to be trained by this year?

 

 

[John-in-KC]

ScoutNut,

 

Yes. All Direct Contact leaders.

 

http://www.hoac-bsa.org/Libraries/Training_Documents/TRN_Registered_Leader_Training_Initiative_2009.sflb.ashx

 

Our Executive Board has not given us relief from this mandate.(This message has been edited by John-in-KC)

[CalicoPenn]

"(oh, and don't forget your Den Chiefs - they are also required to take the on-line Youth Protection training now, or so I have read).

Where have you read this? Nothing is stated about Den Chiefs on the Youth Protection section of the BSA National Web site."

 

 

Admittedly, I wasn't convinced that this was really the case - but for some reason, there are folks in the Atlanta Area Council that believe this is the case - and believe it enough to add it as a parenthetical to their matrix of what training is needed.

 

Which makes me wonder, if National isn't quietly testing the idea that Den Chiefs should be trained in YPT too, or if the legal folks for the Atlanta Area Council have looked at it and decided that Den Chiefs could be as much a risk to Cubs Scouts as adults could be.