Recruiting and Retaining Hispanic Youth

[SeattlePioneer]

While I was out doing my morning run, a couple of additional questions for Kudu occurred to me:

 

 

You are obviously proud of your record of getting youths to request that you contact their parents to inquire about joining Scouting.

 

But getting youths interested in Scouting is only a part of the issue. The real issue tends to be getting parents to sign on to their son joining the program, and then learning about and understanding the program so they can continue to support his participation.

 

So Kudu, what do you do when you call a family and find only Spanish speakers available to talk to you? Or perhaps you find someone who speaks some English or a youth who acts as an intermediary with the parent? Do you find there are limitations to such methods?

 

Suppose you had recruited that one bilingual parent as your Troops ScoutParent Co-ordinator who made those phone calls and was able to discuss the program intelligently in the native language of the parents. Do you suppose that might improve your recruiting record?

[Kudu]

SeattlePioneer writes:

 

You are obviously proud of your record of getting youths to request that you contact their parents to inquire about joining Scouting.

 

70% of sixth-grade boys want to be a Boy Scout if you present Scouting as an activity that might just be too, um, dangerous for them:

 

http://inquiry.net/adult/recruiting.htm

 

That should be the best news any volunteer has ever heard.

 

These forums should be ablaze with fierce debates between Scouters who rave about how many Scouts they just recruited (but can't remember where they got the idea), versus those for whom my presentation did not work and speak from bitter personal experience of being Formed and Stormed off the stage

 

SeattlePioneer writes:

 

But getting youths interested in Scouting is only a part of the issue. The real issue tends to be getting parents to sign on to their son joining the program, and then learning about and understanding the program so they can continue to support his participation.

 

44% of the parents of the racially-mixed audiences did not allow them to join the BSA, but I don't remember many Hispanics dropping out, if any.

 

SeattlePioneer writes:

 

So Kudu, what do you do when you call a family and find only Spanish speakers available to talk to you?

 

That never happened.

 

This morning I went over my old sign-up sheets to look for Spanish surnames. My notes are sketchy: Just abbreviations in the margins of the call sheets. Hispanics are either indicated with a "Yes," meaning they will be there that night, or "Msg" (left message with a person), "AM" (left message on an answering machine), "By" (busy signal), or "NA" (no answer). So maybe Spanish-speakers screen their calls.

 

SeattlePioneer writes:

 

Or perhaps you find someone who speaks some English or a youth who acts as an intermediary with the parent?

 

Yes, by definition these kids all spoke enough English to go to school.

 

Hispanic kids did tend to be more independent. They would sometimes get a ride from a friend and show up at a meeting even though I did not speak with their parents.

 

SeattlePioneer writes:

 

Do you find there are limitations to such methods?

 

Presenting the Scoutcraft program as it is described in our Federal Charter is just like the movie "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." After the encounter these sixth-graders feel undeniably drawn to an isolated area in the wilderness where something spectacular is about to happen.

 

28% of them get there while the rest sit at home and play with their mashed potatoes.

 

SeattlePioneer writes:

 

Suppose you had recruited that one bilingual parent as your Troops ScoutParent Co-ordinator who made those phone calls and was able to discuss the program intelligently in the native language of the parents.

 

Understand that I have no patience what-so-ever with "cultural sensitivity."

 

Kids are pretty much the same when you take them out of their usual environment and transport them to the deep dark woods. Despite the lure that the promise of rattlesnakes and bears had when sitting in a safe auditorium, they ALL react in different ways when it is pitch black and they hear a raccoon outside their tent for the first time.

 

Or when (just like ALL kids a hundred years ago), they wake up in the morning after a thunderstorm and smell bacon, eggs, and pancakes.

 

The only outdoor skills I found to be correlated with race is that Black kids tend to really suck at swimming compared to others from the same neighborhoods.

 

And as far as adult participation goes, as Moosetracker points out we have very different viewpoints. Apparently most of your experience is with the Cub program.

 

The only thing I have to do with that world is that I run the Webelos program at our local summer camp (where I run interference between Webelos and Den Leaders). Oh, and these Den Leaders themselves when the District combines OWLS with the ItOLS course that I staff.

 

As far as the Boy Scout program was concerned, the only thing I wanted from a Committee was a good treasurer. Over the years I usually had the sons of District Commissioners in my Troops, so the DC usually recruited and built the Troop Committees as best they could.

 

SeattlePioneer writes:

 

Do you suppose that might improve your recruiting record?

 

I was not interested in improving my recruiting record.

 

My goal in rebuilding a "Troop in Trouble" was usually to recruit 15 Scouts per year for two years. A few would drop out, and the Scouts would recruit others.

 

I did recruit 20 per year a couple of times back in the 1990s. I found that parents who need extra phone calls to recruit usually either a) had horribly dysfunctional kids, or (the opposite) b) were helicopters who wanted the program to revolve getting Eagle on their indoor sons' business resumes.

 

AGAIN: 70% of sixth-graders want to be Boy Scouts if you present Scouting as an adventure that might just be too dangerous for them. I usually recruited 28% of the audience, and I have provided a statistical breakdown of the other 42%:

 

http://inquiry.net/adult/recruiting_boy_scouts_public_schools.htm

 

But rather than debating how I might have done things differently to reach those 42%, you should be out there getting your first 28%

 

Yours at 300 feet,

 

Kudu

Scuba Diving Merit Badge:

http://www.inquiry.net/scuba_diving_merit_badge/index.htm

[SeattlePioneer]

Well, it's obvious Kudu is happy with his program and sees no need to consider anything that might add to it. He's certainly welcome to that.

 

Unfortunately, business as usual has not been doing a good job at all of recruiting and retaining Hispanic youth. And that failure has led pretty directly to the Soccer and Scouting program Kudu despises.

 

My efforts are aimed at improving the performance of traditional Cub Scout and Boy Scout units, hoping to find ways to improve the number of Hispanics participating in Scouting.

 

Whether that will do much good remains to be seen. Bright ideas are cheap ----bright ideas that WORK are rare, and my ideas are only ideas at this point.

 

I might add that for my March Roundtable I'm planning to invite Cub Scout pack leaders to bring their Scouts to a model of how a Recruiting night can be run.

 

Those pack leaders will be making stomp bottle rockets with their sons as a recruiting night activity, and while the boys are blasting their rockets off outdoors I'll be running through my ideas for a recruiting program with the adults, just as in a real recruiting night new parents would be signed up for Scouting.

 

Whatever good ideas surface at the January program on Recruiting Hispanic youth will be incorporated as part of that program.

 

Usually getting pack leaders to turn out for training on recruiting is very difficult to do. My aim this time is to have an activity that will be FUN for parents and boys, just as a recruiting night should be fun to attract parents and boys.

 

But again, that's just another bright idea at this point. But as district membership chair, I'm always on the lookout for ways of improving pack recruiting efforts. There are units that have excellent recruiting methods, but explaining those methods to other unit leaders and persuading them to give them a try is hard to do.

 

 

[Kudu]

SeattlePioneer writes:

 

Well, it's obvious Kudu is happy with his program and sees no need to consider anything that might add to it.

 

Unfortunately, business as usual has not been doing a good job at all of recruiting and retaining Hispanic youth.

 

No, my program is not "business as usual," now is it? It was business as usual back when Scouting was popular, before Leadership Development was invented and drove two million Boy Scouts out of Scouting.

 

I did not realize that you are "district membership chair"!

 

That means that either you do know what your TAY rate is, or you have access to that information but (because of Wood Badge magical thinking) you do not think that membership statistics are relevant to, um, membership goals

 

I have been very specific about my TAY rate (which was 28% IN ADDITION to whatever my last Council's TAY was), to which you replied "despite your claims to the contrary, the performance you describe suggests that you have a good deal you could learn."

 

So what is your TAY rate, SeattlePioneer?

 

Yours at 300 feet,

 

Kudu

http://kudu.net

 

[SeattlePioneer]

The Cub pack for which I am Cubmaster was down to one boy two years ago, when I undertook an effort to rebuild it.

 

It's still struggling.

 

In another year it will be on it's own, and I will be off to other things that need to be done or are desireable to do.

 

Last June, our Cub Scout Roundtable Commissioner left, with no one to replace him. I've been putting together a Roundtable program since then, and have plans for program through March at this point. Sorry if the program I've selected doesn't meet with your approval.

 

At some point before too long, if my district officers don't come up with a replacement, I will be leaving that program.

 

Personally I try to work with weak and failing programs to give them a new lease on life. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't. I have never been a volunteer with a strong Cub Pack or Troop.

 

Frankly, you are welcome to your self satisfied pride. Perhaps it's earned. But your sneering, cocksure arrogance that you've displayed several times on this thread is a character weakness, in my opinion.

[Kudu]

SeattlePioneer writes:

 

your self satisfied pride...your sneering, cocksure arrogance...a character weakness

 

Ad hominem logic! They are going to LOVE you at Wood Badge if you haven't taken it already.

 

You said that an additional 28% TAY ABOVE Cub Scout Crossover was poor performance.

 

So I asked you for your District's TAY (The percentage of Total Available Youth in your area that are Boy Scouts).

 

What is your District's TAY, SeattlePioneer?

 

Yours at 300 feet,

 

Kudu

http://kudu.net

 

[SeattlePioneer]

Really Kudu,

 

 

You have already put your sneering, cocksure attitude on display several times. Additional repetition is really not needed.

 

 

I suppose you will take pride at ruining a thread that might have proved to be valuable to other people.

 

Your work here is done!

[Kudu]

SeattlePioneer writes:

 

your sneering, cocksure attitude on display several times...pride at ruining a thread...

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection

 

Let's review:

 

You say that up to 20% Latino Boy Scouts in a Boy Scout Troop is not significant.

 

You say that a 28% recruitment ratio in ADDITION to Cub Scout Crossover is poor performance.

 

You say that these are the kinds of percentages that force BSA millionaires to declare war on an Act of Congress just to keep 12 year-old Boy Scouts away from camping.

 

So back it up with some basic logic: What is your District's membership ratio to Total Available Youth, Mr. District Membership Chair?

 

As for "ruining a thread," let me "ruin" it again: Anyone who Scares with Scoutcraft an auditorium of racially-mixed sixth-graders will recruit all the Hispanics he wants.

 

Cocksure at 300 feet,

 

Kudu

 

How to recruit sixth-grade Boy Scouts in the public schools:

http://inquiry.net/adult/recruiting.htm

 

[Shriscov]

Fellow Scouters,

I will speak for myself when I say the personal attacks are out of hand in this thread's fourth page.

I will contribute a little to this since I work in a very diverse school (and am the son of a Spanish-speaking immigrant).

All of us, adults and youth, can gain by looking at the big picture and history of Scouting. Scouts exist in more countries than Olympic teams (well, more than Winter Olympics)because there is a universal appeal of learning through fun. It has a positive effect on the community.

The community might be a church, a school, a labor union...if Scouting can extend that group's mission perhaps Scouting can work there. I agree with a previous post that looked at units within the Hmong community as a possible approach.

While certain groups reach out to Scouting, Scouting can reach out to other groups in the community and overseas. Many opportunities exist now with technology--I should say I am a cub scout leader who has happily had foreign Scouters as penpals. (Does one still say "penpals" when online?)

I have seen an international approach pushed by a neighboring district in this way: every unit was asked to do some one month's meeting theme with an international focus. The logic was that current cub scouts will someday attend the 2019 World Jamboree which may be in the US. If scouts and leaders sought out the international it could send a universal message of friendship within our community.

[Kudu]

I had decided to give Moosetracker the last word on "Kudu" in this thread because I think her assessment is right on, but then SeattlePioneer went out on his morning run and "a couple of additional questions for Kudu occurred to" him.

 

So I pulled out all of my old sign-up sheets and provided more details of 28% recruitment presentations which include Hispanic Boy Scouts. In a nutshell the answer to the topic question is that an overwhelming number of ALL sixth-graders crave the Scoutcraft Program guaranteed to them by an Act of Congress, just like they have for a hundred years. Offer that program to a mixed race audience and Hispanic boys will sign up in the same percentages as the other boys.

 

I opened my post with the observation that 70% of sixth-graders want to be a Boy Scout if you present Scouting as a dangerous adventure.

 

Then I repeated it again at the end. To which SeattlePioneer replied:

 

"Well, it's obvious Kudu is happy with his program and sees no need to consider anything that might add to it. He's certainly welcome to that. Unfortunately, business as usual has not been doing a good job at all of recruiting and retaining Hispanic youth. And that failure has led pretty directly to the Soccer and Scouting program Kudu despises."

 

So I ask the obvious question:

 

"OK, if my numbers are 'business as usual,' an example of 'not doing a good job at all of recruiting and retaining Hispanic youth,' and a 'failure that has led pretty directly to the Soccer and Scouting program Kudu despises,' then, um, what are the membership percentages in your District?"

 

The number that I often hear is 2%: A DE is expected to deliver 2% of the Total Available Youth (TAY) in his District.

 

Scouting professionals tell me that 2% is a "low figure" that would not qualify as a "membership goal," but unfortunately it is realistic percentage in some areas. Given the catastrophic terms with which SeattlePioneer describes his District (and the fact that he goes into Full Wood Badge Attack Mode every time I ask for his TAY ratio), then for the sake of argument let's say his TAY is 2%.

 

So then what do I consider to be the appropriate response from a District Membership Chair who has a 2% TAR ratio, and claims to have building "Traditional" Boy Scout units as his goal?

 

"28%? WOW! That is 14 times our current rate! As District Membership Chair I certainly have the connections to test your claims to see how they work in our own local schools. Let me try this out and report back to everyone!"

 

But in real life Wood Badge Logic always perceives a successful Scoutcraft program as a threat to be defeated.

 

For instance SeattlePioneer rejects a return rate 14 times higher than his own, presumably because we did not "recruit that one bilingual parent as our Troop's ScoutParent Co-ordinator who made those phone calls and was able to discuss the program intelligently in the native language of the parents."

 

The appropriate action in that case would be to test his idea against my procedure and see which actually yields a higher TAY ratio.

 

Instead he launched into the kinds of personal insults that John Larson (Director of Boy Scout Leader Training) used against William Hillcourt to replace Hillcourt's Scoutcraft and Patrol Method with the "Leadership Development" program that caused two million Boy Scouts to quit.

 

Leadership Development is precisely why "there aren't enough such talented leaders" to provide the Scoutcraft program that 70% of sixth-grade boys crave. We took the Scoutcraft out of Wood Badge and replaced it with "modern" office "people skills." The kind of people skills that makes the needs of Spanish-speaking Hispanic parents seem more important than English-speaking Hispanic kids.

 

Likewise SeattlePioneer attacks Baden-Powell's minimum standard (MINIMUM STANDARD!) of 300 feet between Patrols: "I know you imagine that your bright ideas and rhetoric about 'Scouting at 300 Feet' is the solution to every problem, but the issues confronting those Scouts units are a lot more complex than that."

 

Well, it is just that Cub Scout point of view that makes the "problem" appear "complex."

 

"Issues" of weak and failing units only seem complex because Cub Scout Wood Badgers would never consider that Baden-Powell's "bright ideas and rhetoric" might be a testable solution to the nightmare Cub Scout program for teenagers that Leadership Development has created.

 

Physical distance is the measure of the Patrol Method. It is real. It is easy to test.

 

It is how I build a Troop of four Boy Scouts into 30.

 

Cocksure at 300 feet,

 

Kudu

http://kudu.net

 

 

[SeattlePioneer]

Sorry Kudu, I don't consider Scouting's Congressional charter nor Baden Powell's words to be holy writ.

 

And I am a good deal more inclined to support soccer and Scouting now than when I began this thread. And I'll be paying more attention to the words and programs of the Chief Scout Executive than I otherwise would have as well.

 

 

[Scoutfish]

okay, I have a question, and I am not attacking anybody, but asking a serious open question:

 

So let's suppose I specifically target hispanics at my next roundup. lets say I recruit enough that my pack becomes 10% hispanic .

 

1) Why am I focusing on stuff that seperated race instead of just working on an all inclusive program.

2) Suppose I do recruit 10 hispanic scouts and 1 bilingual parent. Does that parent have to run from den to den translating for the non english speaking parents? I mean, Iam assuming that I am recruiting more than one rank.

 

3) Come Pack meeting time, how do I maintain a smooth, seemless yet decently short meeting when a percentage of my scout's parents and family have no idea of what is going on?

 

4)As soon as I make a point of maintaining reewcords, paperwork, and making a point of having "X" number of Hispanics, how long before I have to set a goal of and maintain a racially balanced ration of Blacks, Whites, Hispanics and Asians.

 

How long before my pack folds because we are known as:

A) The Affirmitive Action Pack

B) We spend too much time and energy worring about racial diversity and percentages and TAY's that we burn out before even working the basic scout program.

 

Like I said before, I don't recruits Hispanics, over Whites or Asians or Blacks. I don't recruit blondes over brunetes. I don't recruit rich over poor or Catholics over Baptists.

 

I just go out their and aim for the most importantly signifigant of all groups....BOYS!

 

Seems to me that tghis will end up being more of a racial/cultural divide than a inclusion.

[SeattlePioneer]

Very good questions Scoutfish, and I don't pretend to have good answers.

 

 

As District Membership Chair, I've conducted many recruiting nights for packs around my district, and frankly I've never made the slightest special effort to recruit Hispanic families.

 

I find Hispanic children to be as interested in Cub Scouts as are white students, and usually they seem to have a comparable command of English. Perhaps I'm underestimating their problem, but the children don't seem to have a problem being attracted to Cub Scouts.

 

And a fair number of Hispanic parents turn out for recruiting nights as well. And some put their hard earned money down to join. But how many are putting their money down understanding little or nothing of the program they are joining?

 

 

I know in my own pack, a fair number of Spanish speaking families have joined, but often they drop out about as fast as they have dropped in. A year ago and this spring I had Spanish speaking families put their money down to join and NEVER saw them again.

 

I called one family twenty times or more, trying to make a connection and get them involved. Every time I called I got a Spanish speaking adult that I couldn't communicate with at all.

 

Two years ago I had a bilingual Spanish speaking woman who joined my pack and informally helped a couple of other Spanish speaking families involved. At the time, I didn't realize what a resource she was. After a year, that family dropped out.

 

I suspect there are things English speaking packs can do to make Spanish speaking immigrant families feel more at home, a part of the program and contributing to the leadership of the pack. I suggested some ways that might be done in my opening post on this thread.

 

Why NOT have Scout handbooks in Spanish at Recruiting nights? Why NOT have a Spanish speaker welcome families in their native language at recruiting nights if someone is available to do that?

 

Why NOT appoint a bilingual person as a Scoutparent coordinator to keep in touch with Spanish speaking families and keep parents informed of the program plans and to answer their questions?

 

My plans are to keep the pack where I am Cubmaster an English speaking pack, but I'd like to come up with ways to make it friendly and attractive for Spanish speaking families too, as best I can.

 

 

In a nutshell I'd like to find out how to go from doing nothing to doing our best to make Spanish speaking families feel welcome and able to participate in the program. I don't know how to do that yet but I'm looking for ways to do it.

 

One good idea suggested in this thread was to get Hispanic ministries in a Chartered Organization to help decide what to do and to help do it.

 

And I have no interest in a quota based program at all. Neither am I willing to ignore the fact that packs in my district recruit few Spanish speaking families and many of those don't stay long.

[Proud Eagle]

Hispanic Youth...

 

Really I don't know much about the question. We live in a rather non-diverse area but it is certainly gaining more and more diversity. In this area it isn't race that is the main diversity element, though racial diversity is increasing very quickly (but still only a tiny part of total population). To be blunt even council or lodge level functions often have visible minorities counted in the single digits, so this is clearly an issue. Minorities of various types are certainly rather under represented in this area at all levels, while other minorities are over-represented (the percentage of LDS youth in Scouting is certainly an example of this sort).

 

To some degree I think the Scouting program really does not have exactly equal appeal to all groups.

 

On the other hand, a lot of it is not only how we market but who is doing the marketing. If someone that looks and sounds like us that we know of from our social network makes a pitch to us we are more likely to be receptive than if someone who looks different, sounds different, and we have never heard of makes that same pitch. It is part of both the brilliance and the handicap of the Charter Organization model of scouting in use by BSA.

 

I will say the back and forth has gotten rather a bit heated. Kudu certainly has an axe to grind, but I tend to think it is one in need of sharpening and that he knows a thing or two about putting an edge on rusty wood tools. His approach to this question may not be particularly diplomatic or even on point, but in general I think Kudu has a point. As a former (I assume former, it is a new year and no one asked me to serve this year, but that hasn't stopped people's names being put on the roster before) disctrict committee member I have no idea what our TAY or TAR numbers are. I know the council as a whole was running something like 5% at one point where the norm is more like 10%, but that may just be Cubs. After all, Boy Scouts struggles around here and rarely gets any recruiting support, while Venturing might as well not exist and Sea Scouting is as much a mythical creature as sea serpents (despite our council operating an aquatic high adventure and having a camp on a lake larger than Philmont and navigable rivers in every district.

 

As for DeanRx's ideas, I don't particularly think that is on target, but I could be wrong. As to the question of the Catholic Church and Scouting, it certainly has a voice in things (on the atheist question the Catholic Church and the LDS took a strong position and the Methodists backed keeping God too, thus meaning all three major charter partners were on the same side), but not nearly as much as some would think. The BSA/Catholic relationship has always been a bit of an awkward fit, but one that generally works. However, there are many on both sides that have always had issues with the other. Many on the Catholic side see scouting as being a distraction from real youth ministry work, and some are rather uncomfortable with OA (as are those in many other religious groups). Many in Scouting take a view to the role of religion that is not compatible with the Catholic view of the role of religion in the life of the individual and society (largely a carry over from certain anti-Catholic protestant attitudes). In any case, BSA made it choices on these issues, and it can't un-make them without losing all credibility. It can't say to its members and the world on one day that the sun rises in the east and on the next day say that it rises in the west and be taken seriously as a guide to anything of importance any longer. The loss of special relationships has happened. Those fences will not be mended by changing policy. Rather those relationships are forever and for always changed. Those who insist upon an exclusive version of tolerance/inclusivity/diversity never really welcome in those who ever once were in the opposition, rather considering those switching sides to be always and for ever under suspicion.

[Kudu]

SeattlePioneer writes:

 

Sorry Kudu

 

I accept your apology