Scouting/Youth Orgs from a public health perspective

[Armymutt]

I'm writing a paper for a class.  Originally, I was going to do opioids, but thought that I'd have more passion, if not information, for Scouting.  The goal of this is to eventually develop a policy brief that proposes some solution to a public health issue with an equity or social justice aspect.  To me, youth programs in general, and Scouting in particular have great potential as public health programs.  I'm looking at the aspects of mental health, criminal involvement, family dynamics, role models, and social-economic status as the factors that can be improved through a robust Scouting program.  The idea of creating opportunities to build skills over time, mentoring, and an orientation toward service provides evidence that greater support of these programs is needed.  I've identified barriers to participation, including program costs, shortages of volunteers, lack of facilities, and peer perception of "coolness".  

Thoughts?  Inputs?  I'd really like to hear from folks in a variety of areas.  My Scouting experience was Air Force brats, a few suburban white kids of various economic situations - trailers to huge houses in the same troop, and now a group of middle class kids from various races, but essentially the same living conditions.

[UKScouterInCA]

I'm not sure how useful this is as essentially pure personal and biased opinion, rather than quantitative fact. However....

 

My father was a Scout in late 1940's/early 1050's Bristol, in the UK. You may not know much about Bristol, but it is, and was, a major port. It also was the location for the Bristol Aircraft factory. As a result, the center of the city was pretty much leveled by German bombing. The city was essentially an urban mess, with a lot of poverty and crime.

My father credited Scouting with essentially putting him on the proverbial "straight and narrow" by creating opportunities to get out of the urban decay and into the outdoors, while learning a variety of life skills. His was an inner city Troop that catered to whichever boys would participate. There probably was not a lot of ethnic diversity but it was a long way from the stereotype of the more affluent suburban middle class that seems to be portrayed today. These were boys that had never even seen the countryside.

Once he aged out of Scouting he turned around to become a leader and five back to the younger boys as he really believed in those opportunities. Later on, he had moved away from Scouting but I remember when I was a youth that he set up a camp for kids from Londonderry in Northern Ireland as a chance to get kids, both Catholic and protestant, to get outside of the Troubles, camp together, and learn that once the politics were removed that they could all get along.

I really hope that there are still Troops that serve communities like this. Baden Powell was a big advocate of Scouting For All, that Scouting should be blind to class. I think that Scouting can make the largest impact in communities where access to the outdoors is harder, from both location and cost. There are significant barriers though, from volunteerism and adult leadership, to costs, and the impact of negative impressions in the community from the ongoing bankruptcy, child abuse issues, acceptance of gay adults and kids, overt religiosity and so on. If Troops can overcome those barriers I am firmly of the belief that Scouting can make a huge impact on all communities.

[David CO]

1 hour ago, Armymutt said:

I'm writing a paper for a class.  Originally, I was going to do opioids, but thought that I'd have more passion, if not information, for Scouting.  The goal of this is to eventually develop a policy brief that proposes some solution to a public health issue with an equity or social justice aspect.  To me, youth programs in general, and Scouting in particular have great potential as public health programs. 

My college major was Health Education, so I have written a fair number of papers on public health.  I don't see a paper here.  

 

[Armymutt]

17 minutes ago, David CO said:

My college major was Health Education, so I have written a fair number of papers on public health.  I don't see a paper here.  

 

Depends on when you were in school.  Today, "public health" is interpreted more broadly than Congress interprets the term "interstate commerce."  Anything that is a social determinant of health is considered public health.  Off the top of my head, potential policy solutions would be things like requiring all Medicaid providers to allocate sufficient funds to significantly offset the cost of participation in your organizations and providing tax incentives to people who volunteer to be leaders in these organizations.  

 

[David CO]

1 hour ago, Armymutt said:

Off the top of my head, potential policy solutions would be things like requiring all Medicaid providers to allocate sufficient funds to significantly offset the cost of participation in your organizations and providing tax incentives to people who volunteer to be leaders in these organizations.  

Too socialist for me.    

 

[qwazse]

There has been some psycho-social research internationally that touched on the topic of scouting in specific. If I find the articles (again) I'll share.

I agree with @David CO -- not because of any concerns about socialism per se -- but because I think the cost-benefit in health-care dollars won't tip for or against underwriting youth programs. However, if the point of the class is to work through that calculus, this one is pretty creative.

We all have taken the public health ramifications of youth education for granted. The ability, for example, for large numbers of people to swim in open water without dying is intrinsically linked to the proportion of individuals trained in aquatics, first aid, and lifesaving. Loss of life and limb due to forest fires is inversely proportional to the percentage of campers with training in fire safety. And so on ...

FWIW - there are tax incentives for youth leaders (writing off travel, uniforms, fees, etc ...) if their contributions push them above the standard deductions.

[UKScouterInCA]

I'm much more positive on your suggestion here. To answer some of the basic questions here:

Is there enough here to write a paper for a school/university class? Yes

Does/can Scouting have a positive influence on public health? Yes, albeit hard to measure and probably not super significant given the scale of Scouting relative to the population.

Could public policy changes enable Scouting to be more effective at improving public health? Yes, though likely a hard sell given 1) it isn't a primary goal of Scouting, but an incidental effect; its hard to measure, the effect is small, and likely there are many more direct ways of spending tax money that would have bigger gains, and 3) a general reluctance in the US population to pay for preventative medicine (even if it is established that it costs society less in the long run).

Edited September 7, 2021 by UKScouterInCA

[UKScouterInCA]

Apropos of tax deductions and Scouting: https://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/2020/02/14/tax-time/

[UKScouterInCA]

Some other useful literature:

Asensio-Ramon J, Álvarez-Hernández JF, Aguilar-Parra JM, et al. The Influence of the Scout Movement as a Free Time Option on Improving Academic Performance, Self-Esteem and Social Skills in Adolescents. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2020;17(14):5215. Published 2020 Jul 19. doi:10.3390/ijerph17145215

also

Dibben C, Playford C, Mitchell R
Be(ing) prepared: Guide and Scout participation, childhood social position and mental health at age 50—a prospective birth cohort study
J Epidemiol Community Health 2017;71:275-281.
and a news report on the same: https://health.usnews.com/health-care/patient-advice/articles/2018-05-04/are-there-mental-health-benefits-to-being-a-scout

Edited September 7, 2021 by UKScouterInCA

[UKScouterInCA]

Additionally, there are example(s) of existing public health initiatives that have leveraged Scouting.

 

The ScoutStrong Presidential Lifestyle Award promotes physical activity and healthy eating.

 

The American Heart Association seem to have had a collaboration to provide instruction at Cub Scout Camps.

 

The 50 year anniversary EPA award encourages Scouts to volunteer in Public Health related service projects.

 

Girl Scouts have a program on SNAP (Scouting Nutrition & Physical Activity Program) to promote healthier living.

[InquisitiveScouter]

I like the idea, and believe you should scope the idea first by defining the problem.

What, exactly, is the problem you are trying to solve?  And then explore the question as to whether Scouting is a solution to that problem.

The way to have phrased your OP, it seems like you are putting the cart before the horse.  That is, you have a solution (Scouting) that is looking for a problem (some sort of public health issue that can be addressed by a youth program, and the crafting of a policy to implement your personally desired solution.)

[MattR]

On 9/7/2021 at 12:14 PM, UKScouterInCA said:

My father was a Scout in late 1940's/early 1050's Bristol, in the UK. You may not know much about Bristol, but it is, and was, a major port. It also was the location for the Bristol Aircraft factory. As a result, the center of the city was pretty much leveled by German bombing. The city was essentially an urban mess, with a lot of poverty and crime.

My father credited Scouting with essentially putting him on the proverbial "straight and narrow" by creating opportunities to get out of the urban decay and into the outdoors, while learning a variety of life skills. His was an inner city Troop that catered to whichever boys would participate. There probably was not a lot of ethnic diversity but it was a long way from the stereotype of the more affluent suburban middle class that seems to be portrayed today. These were boys that had never even seen the countryside.

This is the part that sticks with me. Scouting helps kids that need it. Why is that? And is scouting much different from other activities? Or is it just that scouting just attracts different kinds of kids than, say, sports? In my case I did both scouts and sports and I seemed to have kept different aspects of each (with some overlap).

Second, what are the barriers to these types of activities for families in "an urban mess, with a lot of poverty and crime"? Again, is scouting unique? The BSA has been trying to crack that nut for a long time and have failed. I have my suspicions why but lets just say the BSA might benefit from the paper @Armymutt is writing.

[Eagledad]

32 minutes ago, MattR said:

This is the part that sticks with me. Scouting helps kids that need it. Why is that?

There is something there. Individuality? fairness maybe, I don't know, but we had several special needs scouts, who struggled outside of scouts, excel in the troop.

Barry

[UKScouterInCA]

 

2 hours ago, MattR said:

This is the part that sticks with me. Scouting helps kids that need it. Why is that?

That is a tough one to crack. I think the answer lies somewhere in the high expectations for youth to actually do adventurous, grown up stuff without parental/adult supervision and leadership. I'm not a big sports person but my impression is that there isn't anywhere near so much of that. I'm speaking as a latch-key generation kid, we were pretty free range and if we wanted to do anything we had to organize it ourselves. I vividly remember my youth scout camps where we would always do a night hike - we'd leave camp at around 11pm and hike until dawn, the adults would arrange meeting spots every 3 hours or so during the night but between those times we were on our own, navigating in the dark. For my Chief Scouts Challenge expedition (one of the higher awards in Scouting, as we didn't have Eagle Scout) I took off to the Isle of Wight on a biking trip with a few friends. I did my first big backpack trip solo when I was 15 or so and we never really did any backpacking in our Troop.

I'm just back from Philmont and although yes, we do have 2 deep adult "leadership" in the crew, us adults tried really hard to do what we are supposed to do - sit back and let the youth do it all. Where else would a 14 year old kid spend 2 weeks in the wilderness, largely self supported, with a team of youth, pretty much working it all out themselves? Yes, it is kind of backpacking Disneyland and all, but they are still out in the wilderness, navigating, traveling a good distance each day at altitude, working out how to resolve their group conflicts, dealing with being hot, cold, tired, hungry, emotional, irritable.

Why do I think this is relevant for youth development and public health in a way that sports are not? I think because Sports teach teamwork, hard work, discipline and core skills - all good things. But Scouts teaches that things that are scary or intimidating, that you don't think you can do,  you can. This could be a backpack trip, or whitewater rafting, or rock climbing, but equally well could be a board of review, or interviewing a judge to discuss your constitutional responsibilities. You do them, to paraphrase a certain president, "not because they are easy, but because they are hard.” By doing the hard things, everything else afterwards in life seems more manageable.

Now this topic is about public health, though that is fairly broad. The obvious gains - Scouts teaches better eating habits and promotes exercise are obvious. The less obvious gains are where it is most interesting (to me) though - providing better mental (and physical) health, which comes from better societal success, which comes from greater self confidence, which comes from the activities Scouting provides.

[SSScout]

This from a Cub Scout FaceBook page.....

have some interesting information for all the Kentucky Scouters in the group.

All cub scouts that have Medicaid medical insurance under WellCare, they (WellCare) will pay the entire amount of the signup fee for that scout.

I think one of the stipulations was that the scout has to sign up during the school night signups (that little stipulation may be lifted with all the Covid-19 stuff), I am not 100% on that, but even still.

Seems like we are getting smacked in the face with fee increases and newly added fees every time we turn around, this could make Scouts possible for a lot of kids that may not have had the resources to come up with all the different fees.

WellCare will only cover sign up fees, meaning they won’t cover any of the costs for uniforms, den dues, special activities, or anything like that.

Their reasoning behind doing this is that the Scouting program helps get kids outside, moving around, and promotes healthy lifestyles. Which could possibly save them money in medical bills down the line.

 

??  I have no other info on this, but anything carrying the "Medicare" title,  has to have a "public health" connection.  More research....