Program Quality Awards

I understand your point whuggard but disagree that the sentiment is that if you don't meet all of the requirements then the leaders efforts aren't good enough. If a youth finishes 11 out of 12 badge requirements what happens? They don't get the badge. Awards that are given out when work isn't completed lessens the meaning of the award.

However, I would like to see some type of progressive award based on progressive standards.

Garth

If a youth finishes 11 out of 12 badge requirements what happens? They don't get the badge. Awards that are given out when work isn't completed lessens the meaning of the award.

A whole different debate...and I would disagree with you there too.

If a youth finishes 11 out of 12 badge requirements what happens? They don't get the badge. Awards that are given out when work isn't completed lessens the meaning of the award.

A whole different debate...and I would disagree with you there too.

Then let's do that. I opened a NEW TOPIC:

Award Value when Award is NOT completed.

on this Forum for that purpose.

The revised Program Quality Standards and Award structure were done after input from all of the 20 Councils, as well as the National Youth Network.

But this input didn't come from the people who are providing relevant leadership: The Scouters in successful sections.

Commissioners are consulted on all sorts of issues, but they just share their own opinions. I've never known a commissioner who finds out what the members think and then works to support them.

There was much discussion and input on what we were trying to achieve by having these published standards. The goal is to try and provide the best well rounded program for our youth members. We know that when Sections are doing this our retention rate is higher.

How do you know? Have you done research? I've done research on this and that research got me my university degree and later I was asked to present it at the World Scout Scientific Congress in Geneva. Most importantly, I've applied the research in building my troop.

Simply put, the Scout Program Standards fail to include things that research shows is important and includes things without justification.

Scouts Canada needs to see its role as supporting Scouters, not of ordering them about.

By having mandatory things like linking, training, outings and involving the youth in the decision making of their Section, it will accomplish these excellent program goals.

You can't make any of these things "mandatory", in any effective sense. You'll get far more mileage out of encouragement then from bossing people around. Want people to take training? Make it worthwhile. Want people to go on outings? Provides facilities, resources, and encouragement. Most of all, listen to the members and do what they ask.

I have mixed feelings on these program quality awards. There was about a push a year ago to hand out these awards and I had similar misgivings. IMHO, it comes down to whether the intent of the award is to make leaders feel good and encourage them, or to reward those leaders who really are running an excellent program. Since many awards are handed out based on who you know, rather than what you know or what you have done, there are many leaders and area teams that will just check off all the boxes to get the award. But if this keeps leaders interested in staying with the program, then is it really hurting anyone? The leaders that really are running a good section probably don't care about the awards.

I agree that many items that make both a successful section and/or a good Scouting section are missing. These two facets are different as you could have have great retention and happy kids if you run really good activities and meetings, but not have a COH, real patrols, etc. Though one could argue that without those Scouting aspects a section cannot, by definition, be successful.

I don't actually think you can capture in a checklist whether a section is being running correctly. I think a checklist is more useful as a tool to see if there are things you could be doing that perhaps you are not. So I think this list would be better off expanded to include more items and perhaps even show needs improvement/achieve/exceeded levels for some of the categories. i.e. for number of nights camping. Some items I don't think contribute to a quality program, like the religion in life item; that would just bore the kids to bits. Items like "Weekly programs that are typically conducted as described in the Scout Leader’s Handbook, and incorporate appropriate safety precautions." are meaningless. Everybody would tick that off. And why mention safety precautions in this type of list.

Maybe what we should produce are some grassroots checklists. Use Liam's thesis as a starting point and work from there. Distribute these around and see if we can get feedback from anybody that they are useful. Perhaps they may even take hold at the corporate level.


Allan.

Good morning Scouter Liam,

I would suggest that you and I will agree to disagree on the Program Standards, on their use and intent! I commend you for running a successful program for the youth in your Troop. However, not all Sections are run as well and these standards are meant to 'point the way' and help focus Sections on what they should be doing. I would strongly disagree with your statement of 'bossing people around'. I don't believe that is a fair statement to all the volunteers who are working hard for the benefit of Scouting in Canada.

If you have suggestions on how the Standards could be improved/modified or if you would like to share your research I would encourage you to share it. You can send it to your DCC-Program in your Council or send it to me, doug.reid@scouts.ca

Thank you,
Doug

"Commissioners are consulted on all sorts of issues, but they just share their own opinions. I've never known a commissioner who finds out what the members think and then works to support them."

I disagree with this- as a commissioner I am consulted, and I ask for as much input as I can. Every meeting I attend I pass out my card and ask for volunteers to send me their opinions and concerns. I post information to our facebook page, I e-mail out questions for response. Multiple times I've visited many groups to deliver a survey in person and receive response. The reality is- I rarely receive the feedback I ask for.

Also- many commissioners are section leaders first- the vast majority do not join the movement as a ready-made commissioner, and I would argue that their opinions are valued, which is part of the reason they got their job in the first place. In fact- there are active commissioners (from various levels) in this forum.

If you think your commissioner does not ask for your thoughts, I suggest you e-mail them and give your opinions to make sure your voice is heard.

Note...I just saw evidence of this EXACT process happening again with the recent request for feedback on the FAST and FLEX youth leadership sessions. I know of many who provided extensive feedback but NOTHING was changed. Why? It appears that the courses were finished, the articles for Scouting Life written (which came out this month) but no feedback was requested until there were only days left to some kind of deadline.

a

To respond to Fast and flex specifically- yes the article did go out to inform people of its existence and purpose- but it isn't quite finished for rollout because we are yet again going through and evaluating the feedback we have received (it's coming very soon). Your assumption is incorrect- we are indeed taking the feeedback seriously and utilizing it. Also- when they start to run, there will be an evaluation process for those who are involved to gain even more feedback for potential future changes. It is discouraging me that the attitude (at least in this forum) is that grass roots input is not valued. I'm here to say that it most definitely is.

Also- when we do receive input, it is often from people who contradict each other, and at that point a decision has to be made. Not everyone is going to be happy with the decision. If a change is suggested, not acting on it does NOT mean it was not seriously considered.

Yes Kaylee there is a bit of the blame game going on. More so just venting.

Deep down I think that we all know our voices are being herd and understand that there are diffrences of opinions so we don't get exactly what we think is best. The issue is that we never see the process happening. Someone will ask for opinions and then hide away for the next couple of months until they are done. Only then do we get to find out which sugestions they choose and what the final product is. (There are some exceptions to this and it is slowly getting better)

I would really appreasciate a monthly posting on each of the ongoing projects with a large disclamer that it is a draft so that we can see the on going work. Perferably on this forum so that we can make comments and provide additional feedback direct to the people who are implementing the change.

An extra hour a month to fill in survays, email you commisionar, or post on this forum is not asking too much but you are right it is a huge challange that commisionars face.

Taking a look back at why the Aberdeen group split up one of the reasons is because the group commisionar was constantly asking questions and getting little to no responce while the leaders were complaining that the group commisionar was a dictator. There is the same us (grass root volunteer) vs them (national level members) complex going on here. The question is how do we get both groups to see the other's view point and feel included.

I would suggest that you and I will agree to disagree on the Program Standards, on their use and intent! I commend you for running a successful program for the youth in your Troop. However, not all Sections are run as well and these standards are meant to 'point the way' and help focus Sections on what they should be doing.

I agree that program standard should help Scouters to improve their programs. So, let's consider a troop that does 6 nights of camping a year, but doesn't do an environmental project. If they are following the program standards, they will organize an environmental project. However, what they desperately need to do is to get out camping more. The current program standards would have moved them away from what is important.

My research paper is "Membership Retention in Scout Troops".

When I was born, Scouting had already been in decline for a decade. I was lucky at first and was always in fantastic sections with strong programs and healthy membership. As I grew, I became responsible for running these healthy sections. I heard about decline, but I've always been in healthy sections. There are many healthy sections out there. Scouts Canada needs to listen to them to learn how to create success.

But this requires a truly open mind: I know of one fantastic troop that wears Stetson hats. The people who think the solution for membership decline lies in a "fresh" uniform are clearly missing something.

I really like the BSA's new Journey to Excellence program that they use for section quality awards. It provides a progressive series of steps that groups can take to have advancement within the badge program, increasing amount of campouts, emphasis on the patrol method, growth and retention, etc. Obviously tweaks would be needed as our program is different but I think this is the way to go.

http://www.scouting.org/scoutsource/Awa ... lence.aspx

In fact, based on this structure, I'd be interested in hearing where your scout section would be? Since some things don't equate directly I've added some conversion explanations below.

1) Ranks: we don't use this terms but for scouts the equivalent would be going from Voyageur to Pathfinder.
4) We don't have the same courses but much of the material is in WB1. A rough equivalent would be Bronze: WB1; Silver: WB2; Gold: Some other self development course.
9) We don't have Webelos but a rough equivalent would be for there be some kind of third year cub transition program that encourages senior cubs to move to scouts.
11) Court of Honour: a BSA CoH is not like ours at all. Our CoH is a way for the youth leadership to meet and plan and discuss issues, ie. run the troop. A BSA CoH is almost always a time for the presentation of badges.

Garth
Alberta

I think that their Patrol Leaders' Council would equivalent our CoH

Agreed...but my challenge is for troop leaders to see how their section would stack up against these BSA requirements. Since we have no real equivalent to their version of a CoH I wanted to describe what their event is so leaders here can make an interpretation as to whether they present badges publicly with parents present.

I especially like their Gold level for number of campouts!

Garth