Making the Disabilities Awareness Merit Badge "Glamorous"

[LeCastor]

A trend I've noticed lately in Wood Badge tickets is the desire to bring more awareness of the fact that so many Scouts and Scouters live with disabilities each day. Perhaps one of the most popular items I've noticed, too, is for Scouters to register as a counselor for the Disabilities Awareness Merit Badge and offer to help Scouts earn it. The only issue is that, as important as this particular merit badge is, it is often over-looked by Scouts in favor of the Eagle-required merit badges at clinics/Pow Wows. That's what I refer to in the subject as "glamorous". My fear is that those counselors, who live with disabilities themselves especially, are personally disappointed if/when their courses aren't filled. An even worse situation is if no one shows up at all!

 

I have the privilege of advising a Wood Badge trainee and I'm trying to get the point across to him that his idea is excellent and important. But he'll have to do a little extra work to promote the badge and "sell it" to Scouts. Does anyone have first-hand experience in promoting the Disabilities Awareness Merit Badge? What has worked for you? What hasn't?

[scoutergipper]

Here's something we're trying: one of our Troop families supports a local organization that provides homes for developmentally disabled adults. The Troop has done one service project for this organization, and we are looking to give the Scouts a chance to do more. At some point, we want to tie the Disabilities Awareness Merit Badge into these efforts.

[qwazse]

At our best, we don't promote MBs. We promote activities related to MBs. Our boys have had fellow-scouts with severe disabilities, so the concepts were pretty much routine, however, not one took the MB. In another example, SM brought in retired fire extinguishers and we practiced putting out oil fires, plus we went over the requirements. Not one boy went after the badge. The point of being an MB counselor is not to hold a course, but to provide unique activities that make for one-of-a-kind meetings.