Scoutmaster Position-Specific Training 2016
In December 2014 the Boy Scouts of America released a new version of one it's main training courses for Scoutmasters and Assistant Scoutmasters. The name of the course was changed from Scoutmaster & Assistant Specific Training to Scoutmaster Position-Specific Training, although the course number remains the same: S24.
Scoutmasters and Assistant Scoutmasters who complete this course, Introduction to Outdoor Leader Skills, and Youth Protection Training are considered "trained" for their positions.
My wife and I ran the new course for the first time in our council in early 2015 at our Merit Badge University event. Overall, I think the course is a great improvement over the previous one. It's more interactive and discussion based, which beats the old course's format of sitting through hours of lecture.
We've both run the course a few times since then, making refinements each time based on feedback and our own observations of how the training sessions went. To that end, we've abandoned the entire rank advancement card section that runs throughout the course syllabus. While it seemed like a good idea, and we kept trying to make it work, in the end we found that the cards added nothing to the course and actually caused problems - slowed down progression, outright confusion, folks found it silly, etc.
If you're a BSA Scouter looking for materials to run the Scoutmaster Position-Specific Training course, you can download the handouts we used here: Scoutmaster Position-Specific Training (22574 downloads) And you can get to the lastest updated PowerPoint presentation we created here on SlideShare. And the script that goes with the slides is here: Scoutmaster Position-Specific Training 2018 Script (9048 downloads)
