Finding trainers

[shortridge]

 

As mandatory training rolls out, it's a safe assumption that training is going to have to become offered more often, thus requiring more trainers.

 

Who are your district and council trainers? What pools of people are they drawn from? For those of you leading training teams or committees, where are the hidden spots that you have found good trainers? Do you recruit from unit-serving Scouters? Other district volunteers? The OA? Camp staff? Venturing crews? For classes like IOLS, do you look for guest trainers from outside groups or agencies, or try to keep it within Scouting?

[ScoutBox]

I'm a Unit Leader, and have been asked to Staff IOLS and Wood Badge. I am also looking forward to Taking the EDGE Course to become a Trainer.. I think that here in our Council, they don't want the "usual suspects" always giving the Training. They work hard to mix things up.

[moosetracker]

As a District training Chair, right now my trainer pool is very very sad.. I just took it on recently and there was no one doing the position for 2 years, so they burnt out the few that did help out. I did host a IOLS and had many people offer to help with the next IOLS, both inside & out of my council. I am hoping this will hold true for other things, and I'm going to put it to the test at our Round table this Monday.

 

My plan is that first I will be offering the test out of IOLS, this has been very well received by my district. I am unsure if anyone in my council has offered it yet. But, there will be a catch.. I will be looking for entirely new people to staff these "test-out-of" training not my current burnt out crew.. I am hoping the excitement of the training and the excitement of getting alot of their leaders trained through this will have those who are trained already step forth to be a trainer and ensure that the course is a go..

 

I am also going to offer the BALOO training in our District, which is offered in other Districts, but if it has ever been before in ours, it has been long enough no one remembers. I am hoping the CubScouts also will be happy about the offering enough to have people step up

to be BALOO trainers..

 

I have also been given the "go" to bring 18 - 20 year olds onto the district training staff. I think they can work IOLS, BALOO, and I am thinking of taking a pair of young adult & "more seasoned" Adult with the Specifics training to give the participants an idea from both points of view. They young adults coming recently from being a youth member I think will have good insight, especially with advice of how to get the unit to work on keeping the intrest after the age of 14..

 

I wish I could do similar for the Cub scout specifics, but.. Those scouts are too young, and the 18-20 years olds will remember little of cub scouts.. So I hope that I can find some promising trainers from the BALOO training pool, and talk them into taking a part with the CS specifics.. Last time we held CS specifics I only had 2 trainers doing everything including all the breakouts. I unfortunatly have been too far removed from CS to be of much help, but I trained to take the Pack Trainer breakout, only no one showed up for that one.

 

I am also going back to CS for a year to work on learning a little of the whole opperation by following certain positions for about a month. Then I will be able to be of help myself. Never having been a SM or ASM, I don't feel comfortable to teach that one.. Maybe someday the paperwork part of it may be ok for me to do.

 

Anyway those are my plans for getting a better group of trainers.. Will it work? I don't know, I can only hope.. We can't go on for long with 4 burnt out trainers & 2 trainers that are getting burnt out..

 

On another note, I am looking for different places to train. I can't keep on using the same school, and burdening the same teacher to get me in for much longer. The Specifics course needs some breakout rooms. But some people have units at churches that have sunday school rooms, some with adult size chairs & tables. The IOLS needs a place you can camp overnight, but all these units may have different places, like areas that their town offer their town members, but if we have some people from the unit in that town on our staff, we could use the place. But the BALOO & Den Leader and other trainings can use a room much like each unit uses for a troop meeting, or Pack meeting..

 

Then there is the problem of projectors.. I "thought" our council had a good pool of projectors for us to borrow. Come to find out they only have two. My specifics will diffinatly use two, and could use three.. So with more trainings that means fighting other districts to borrow those two projectors.. That's a problem.. I am keeping my fingers crossed, my husband found a buisness with alot of projectors they don't need, but they don't know the condition of them.. We are waiting for them to test them out.. and if the bulb (which is the most expensive part) is not blown, and the price is free or small, my husband will pick up 2 or 3 for me.

 

Anyway those are my plans..

[ScoutNut]

After each training course (Council or District) we have the participants fill out a feedback sheet. At the end we ask if they would be interested in helping to staff a future course. Those leaders who indicate an interest are approached to help out in some way the next time that course is run. If they do a good job, and express an interest in getting more involved in training, they are invited to attend the next Train the Trainer (or whatever it is currently called) course.

 

This gives us volunteers who are knowledgeable in the material, and who have been thru the courses.

 

Often we will get trainers because a Course Director taps a friend/relative who has specific knowledge/skills to come help out. The one time helper will get on the "list" of folks available and is then hooked.

 

Trainers are often unit Scouters, or past unit Scouters. They know other Scouters they have worked with, and can recommend those they feel might make good trainers.

[jhankins]

We're implementing a program we like to call Super Saturday. Once a month, trainers from all over the council come to one district and train basic training for every position (including an overnight IOLS).

 

The following month, the trainers all go visit another district, and we rinse and repeat.

 

So far, the response is good. It's less load on each district to get basic training done.

[Lisabob]

Go back a year or two on the adult memberships and see whether there are people who were active, but who have now dropped off the rosters. If they're people who you can work with, call them. Let them know that you have a role for them that doesn't require them to jump in with both feet again, but that is an occasional role. Play up that you know they have a lot of expertise and knowledge about scouting from their many years of activity (supposing this is true, of course). You understand they aren't able/willing to be unit leaders right now, but there are lots of other ways to be involved and serve scouting in their area. Like joining your expanded training team.

 

I know that if someone called me with that pitch, I'd say yes.

 

 

[JMHawkins]

I'm a Unit Leader, and have been asked to Staff IOLS and Wood Badge...

 

At the risk of being labled a heretic... If I was in Mazzuca's place, and I was serious about these training requirements, I'd order all Wood Badge courses suspended until no units failed recharter because of a lack of training.

 

Seriously, the resources devoted to Wood Badge should be diverted to the basic training as long as there's a lack of available basic training. It doesn't do the boys any good to have a handfull of super-trained adults if units are folding left and right because it's too hard to get the volunteers trained.

 

Plus, it seems that the folks who run BSAs training operations are very proud of Wood Badge, and it might be a good motivation for them if they had to get the basic recharter requirements in shape in order to continue offering it.

 

On the other hand, if the recharter training requirements aren't really important enough to jeapordize Wood Badge for, then National should just drop them.

 

 

[ScoutBox]

I remember thinking when I got back into Scouting last year that I wanted to go to WB. SO I had a great incentive to get the Basic Training under my belt. I got to WB, and am looking forward to any future role in my Unit, District and Council. I hope to continue my training, and attend some other training courses like Philmont Leadership COurse, and hopefully Powder Horn n the next few years. I want to bring back this training experience to my unit, and get other leaders to attend at least basic training. I am one who believes in training, and education. Getting the adults and scouts to get trained, and NYLT for the boys hopefully this next year. Problem that been for me and my unit is the distance from District training events. ANd getting District to get down to my area. Leaders in my unit don't have the time to drive 6 hours to a training course. Until I get support from District it's like pulling teeth to get people trained.

[Eagle92]

Here are some ideas for trainers, some of which may be "out of the box."

 

1)Use older scouts, young ASM, and Venturers who have the KSAs to do the training.

 

I would think that a 16-17 yo Scout who has a HA trek under their belt, i.e. Philmont, FL Sea base, N. Tier, Pamlico Sea Base (www.pamlicoseabase.org )etc would have a little knowledge on outdoor skills. Or maybe the summer camp staffer who helps teach first year camper, i.e. the T-2-1 outdoor skills which are covered in IOLS, I'm sure they would have the skills.

 

 

And i would expect the 19y.o. Eagle Scout ASM who has a very strong outdoor background, i.e. fifty-milers, JLT, etc. Should have the expereince to not only test out of the training, but also teach it. He must have did some camping in his career.

 

As for the female Venturer who was never a Scout, I'm sure the Outdoor Bronze will give her the expereince she need to teach the course. Heck isn't one of the Ranger requirements that she is to teach various outdoor skills? Ok they need to teach various skills to"your crew, another crew, a Cub or Boy Scout group, or another youth group," so maybe the requirement needs to be changed to include leaders? but still wouldn't they be a viable source of trainers?

 

2) recruit trainers who have the KSAs, but don't have the "training" best example I could give was my WB friend who never did IOLS as he was a CM and only needed BALOO to go to WB. But he is an Eagle, prior military, and served a a MBC for Camping, Cooking, Backpacking, and several other outdoor MBs. He had the KSAs and FINALLY took IOLS when he taught it at summer camp everyweek for new leaders.

 

 

[GMitch]

Shortridge,

 

The assumption that the mandatory training rollout will require more trainers is somewhat of an erroneous one. I specifically asked Chris Smith of the National Office if we will soon see all Leader Specific training online like Cub Scout training is currently and he told me yes. Therefore, we will likely need the same or fewer trainers to meet our objectives of trained leadership. I'm not saying that we won't need any trainers, but a good majority of folks will opt to do Leader Specific online.

[eaglescout1996]

I'm in one of the 20 pilot councils this year, but I think we're doing a decent job with training. IOLS really needs new staffers, the guys that have been doing it over the years have expressed that they need new blood, which I think is probably everywhere.

 

My district is small with approximately 60 units, and we have few people who step up to the plate. At district committee meetings we have a core group of about eight people who constantly show, and that's including the district commissioner and the two ADC's (myself included). This core group basically does most of the training as well....and I really don't know how we do it.

 

Even though CS training is online, we still have a training day where we meet up at a church with a bank of computers and have everyone sit down and do it (same thing with YPT). It helps that you have a trainer in the room who can answer questions and give personal experience. If you do it online by yourself, that's good too.

 

What we haven't figured out is Venturing....we 8 crews in our district and only one is a "traditional" crew, the rest are JROTC units at high schools. It's hard to get them to training when the only time you see them is at recharter and the JROTC week at summer camp. The other ADC works with them since he's retired from the military, but has a hard time making visits all the time since they meet during the day and he teaches college. The other thing, around here, Venturing training is offered at the council level, and although there are a few councils with in an hour drive or so, there aren't many opprotunities to take basic Venturing training.

 

One other thing....there a lot of trained leaders out there, whose myscouting accounts are linked to their registration numbers or whose training records are incomplete. I ran my training report a couple months ago and I had about 15 courses missing, including WB, NLS, and Trainers EDGE (which I had taken a month prior and the Council registrar was one of the three trainers that day). My wife needed her YPT for recharter this year and our DC couldn't find that she had done it, so I got the printout from the DC and tried to link my wife's registration number with her myscouting account, but I recieved an error message saying "That number is not valid your the council you have selected".

 

Yes, I agree, every youth deserves a trained leader....but until things like the myscouting accounts and training records get fixed, we'll be spinning our wheels. On another note, I think national has done a great job with UVTS 2.0....it's been really helpful for our Commissioners.

 

 

ScoutBox,

 

I feel your pain, although I was in a "small" district in TAC (the defunct Three Rivers District), we still had to drive an hour from Mannheim to K-town for a Chapter meeting or six hours to a Lodge event. But get your your boys to NYLT...I went to Golden Falcon back in 1990 when we had it at Pirmasens for the week. It was so much fun! One night we hiked up to the castle as a patrol and spent the night up there under the stars. The boys in your troop will have a great time and learn a lot.

 

[John-in-KC]

E1996:

 

Venturing Crews which have feet in two programs (CAP Youth Squadrons, JROTC classes) have a program already. To be blunt, they are interested in the resources (read CAMPS) Scouting has.

 

Most are not going to superimpose our structure on their existing structure.

 

Talk with the CORs, talk with the top leaders, and understand their unique needs.

[eaglescout1996]

John, I totally understand....and I'm glad they have a program, our council even has a special week for them at the end of the summer.

 

My only concern is that if we don't get them BSA trained, they will have to drop the charter and lose access to our facilities, which could hurt their program. As long as youth are engaged I don't care if it's our progam, JROTC, 4-H, or FFA.

 

Does anyone know if the same training requirement exists for Exploring Posts? I know the two professionals assigned to my district wouldn't want that to happen, but if push comes to shove, switching them might solve the training problem.

[moosetracker]

I know we tried to offer a Venturing Specifics in our district, but our trainers were small and hadn't done one in years, due to no one coming. Again no one registered & it was canceled..

 

I know two of our Venturing crews are trained, and they are are two strongest. No one else has any training. But, from what I hear it is offered at the Council level once a year, and at a Ventureing group event.. So we probably wont even try to offer it again. If they want it, they can get it in those two places.. Would be better training then what our little district can do for them anyway.. Let's hope they get training, before top leadership is required for our district (We are not a pilot council)..

 

I agree with GMitch that the Specific for BS will soon also be released.. Our CS Specifics stayed about equal in people coming to the BS Specifics, so I am guessing the course will have the same amount of attendees regardless of on-line of off..

 

Still my trainer pool is lower then I need it and I am in need of new blood, regardless of the on-line training...

[jhankins]

Maybe a little bribery with the venturing units? Do it on a weekend they get to camp or use facilities for free? Let the youth play on the COPE course and let the leaders get trained as an "Asset" to their program already in place?