Last week I had the privilege of serving on staff on the National Youth Leadership Team (NYLT) for Denver Area Council (DAC). It was my second year of serving on staff and it was just as grand this year as I remember from last year.
An adult's role as a staff member is primarily health and safety related. The youth staff run the program, and act as mentors to the participants. Also what the adults get to do is watch their patrols learn how to work together, grow individually and as a group, and graduate from the week long program with the confidence to take what they have learned back to their troop.
We had a couple of injuries throughout the week, for which I made purple heart fobs, given for wounds received in action. Our medic gave out fobs for super survivor of the day for participants who came in to see the Medic but survived their events in heroic fashion.
All the participants got to take a turn at being a patrol leader for a day throughout the week. At the end of the week, each patrol elected a permanent patrol leader, who will always be known as the patrol leader for the week and color of the patrol. These participants were sworn in on the last day.
The patrols had to work together to make the time allocated productive before the next event began, and they couldn't be late for that next event. It can be stressful on the patrols, but they are given tools or strategies throughout the week to work through conflicts and to resolve differences so they can become high functioning teams.
This is one of the best programs I've seen both in business and outside of business. These young people are getting training that will provide them with strategies that will help them not only in their scouting careers, but in business and life in general.
It was another wonderful experience to work with these young people, both as participants and youth staff, as well as watch them grow and learn throughout the week. At the end of the week, they all stand a little taller, and more confident than when we started.
It was a good week.
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