Junior Leader Training on District Level

[mt_goodrich]

I would like to see about putting together a half day/full day training within the district for Junior Leaders. I have been speaking to several other adult scouters and they thing it would be a good idea as a lot of troops do not provide this training on the troop level.

I have two boys going to the week-long training that the council will be putting on, but that course isn't until late Spring and would really like them to have a head start.

Has anyone ever put something like this together? Any ideas of what type of syllabus I should look at?

[FieldSports]

Our council offers the course at our annual University of Scouting.
Mom and Dad are there for courses, so why not offer the same to the youth? Den Chief is also offered.

Follow the troop sylabus and guidelines. Just remember, Fun, Fun, Fun.

Just ran our troops JLT and the games are what taught them and kept them interested.

[WVBeaver05]

Mike,

I think you will find that the training is designed to be give as Troop Level Junior Leader Training. The "old" syllabus was pretty much a full day training with (what I considered) excellent learning exercises. The newer one was much shorter and seemed to focus almost exclusively on position responsibilities. (Useless IMHO - I cover all of that with the SPL and newly elected/appointed Scouts within one meeting of election/appointment.) I hear that there is an even newer syllabus that splits the difference, but I haven't seen it yet.

However, I think having some kind of combined training would be good. Not sure that some Councils/Districts would be comfortable including it since it is designed to be done by Troops, but they should be. I have done the full day and invited adjacent Troops to send Scouts to reach an appropriate class size and to offer them the chance when they didn't have enough Scouts to hold this course. The feedback was very positive.

One of the most alarming points about this is something that I have seen as well. Almost no Troops are holding any kind of Troop level Junior Leader Training. This is very wrong and a disservice to the Scouts.

Your idea of holding a course is good and I think you should pursue it. However, I also think that we should all work hard to make sure that Scouters are trained and recognize that they need to train their youth as well. It makes no sense to "throw" a Scout into a position of responsibility without helping (i.e. training) him.

And, of course, strongly encourage active participation in your Council NYLT course or courses.

YiS