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 began leading this training back in 2015 when the course had just been completely revised.  Our training materials available here have been continuously revised and updated each year. The ones available now are for the 2019 syllabus and reflect the changes needed for the Scouts BSA program.

If you're a Scouts BSA trainer looking for Scoutmaster Position-Specific Training materials,  you can download ours here.

Handouts we use for the course: Scoutmaster Position-Specific Training (17121 downloads)

Two versions of our presentation are available:

1. Version for a large number of participants where you can actively use the patrol method during the day. Works well at a University of Scouting type of event.
   Scoutmaster Specific Slides 2021 (13807 downloads)
   - also available on SlideShare
   Scoutmaster Specific Script 2021 (9985 downloads)

2. A version for small groups where multiple patrols aren't feasible. We use each week during our council summer camp. The PowerPoint slides for this one are designed to be printed and used in a 3 ring flip book - just like Troop Guides use in Wood Badge.
   Scoutmaster Specific Slides Summer Camp 2021 (14141 downloads)
   - also available on SlideShare

To see the background on this training, check out this post.

This program is really good at modeling the patrol method and works well in a large setting where you can have multiple patrols - but in a small setting, the patrol activities fall flat and are ineffective. With the summer camp groups being really small - like two or three folks sometimes - this version of the training has been revised to cut down on the patrol activities (patrol name, flog, etc.) but not cut the discussion that is vital to the experience.

There are two versions of the presentation:

1. The FlipBook Version - these PowerPoint slides are designed to be printed and used in a 3 ring flip book - just like Troop Guides use in Wood Badge. You can download the FlipBook PowerPoint file here:  SM Specific 2018 Summer Camp Presentation (6798 downloads)
   
2. The Projector version  -  is on SlideShare. And the script that goes with the slides is here:  Scoutmaster Position-Specific Training 2018 Script (7212 downloads)

And you can download the handouts we use here:  Scoutmaster Position-Specific Training (17121 downloads)

To see the background on this training, check out this post.

We've been lining up trainers for all seven weeks of our Summer Camp program for the past couple of years now to present the training over multiple evenings. This program is really good at modeling the patrol method and works well in a large setting where you can have multiple patrols - but in a small setting, the patrol activities fall flat and are ineffective.

With the summer camp groups being really small - like two or three folks sometimes - this version of the training has been revised to cut down on the patrol activities (patrol name, flog, etc.) but not cut the discussion that is vital to the experience.

The PowerPoint slides are designed to be printed and used in a 3 ring flip book - just like Troop Guides use in Wood Badge.

If you're a BSA Scouter looking for materials to run the Scoutmaster Position-Specific Training course in an outdoor setting, you can download the PowerPoint file here:  SM Specific 2018 Summer Camp Presentation (6798 downloads)

And you can download the handouts we used here:  Scoutmaster Position-Specific Training (17121 downloads)

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 (17121 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 (7212 downloads)