5 June 2009
Are Boy Scouts Going Mental?
Posted by admin under: advancement .
I’m a bit slow to take up new things most times, but the BSA innovation engine has an RSS feed so even a lazy bones like me can keep tabs on their new ideas as they’re posted. Here’s a new one that I’m ambivalent about.
The H&S Support Committee would like to see mental health issues addressed within the program. They are requesting feedback on the proposal. Their desire is to weave it into the advancement process. SME’s are available to support this effort.
While scouting incorporates a good many aspects of physical health maintenance and injury/crisis management in its advancement process, aspects of mental health are not. Yet there are a number of aspects of mental health and illness that could be articulated and incorporated in the scouting education and advancement program.
A colleague talked about this matter with his nephew, who was an active scout. When asked about a scouting program to assess competencies in mental health, that scout suggested it would be a “great idea” to include this in the content of a merit badge. Indeed, he thought that Boy Scouts should be asked to have the following mental health competencies:
1. Have the ability to recognize signs of good and poor mental health in oneself and others
2. Know strategies for helping others with mental health problems
3. Be able to provide first aid for acute stress (“psychological first aid”)
4. Be familiar with different types of mental disorder
5. Recognize drug and alcohol abuse and their complications
This scout agreed that knowledge of drug and alcohol abuse and prevention are important, but he thought that material presently is covered fairly well. He suggested that material about mental health could be learned through a combination of reading and meetings with a mental health professional. He thinks that competency could be demonstrated through the combination of a written test and discussion or demonstration (i.e. role playing).
Currently, the majority of the votes are in favor of this idea. I’m not that supportive not because I don’t think mental health isn’t worth knowing about, but because I think it’s a very difficult concept to learn, damage can be done if mishandled, and almost everyone tries to meddle when they have a small amount of information. Not only that, but I’m not convinced that the majority of mental health professionals are up to the task of helping others. Sorry. It’s my bias. I’m thinking that adding what sounds like it might be a compulsory mental health component in the advancement program could suppress our shrinking recruitment results.
Like I said, it sounds reasonable, but I’d have to have a convincing argument to keep me from thinking this would turn into a “I’m smarter than you” kind of change to the program.
- Brainstorming the BSA
- Interactive Boy Scout Handbook
- BSA Laser Tag No-No is a Maybe
- Scoutmaster Merit Badge Veto
- Boy Scouts Youth National Board Suggestion
