Recruiting and Retaining Hispanic Youth

[SeattlePioneer]

Recruiting and retaining Hispanic youth ought to be a big issue in my district and council. I've decided to try to make it one.

 

The kickoff for that event will be making that the topic for our district Roundtables i n February. The presenter will be the Council's District Eexecutive for our Soccer and Scouting Program aimed at Hispanic youth.

 

I sent him the following e-mail outlining issues he might want to consider for his presentation.

 

 

 

 

As Cubmaster for Pack 240 in the Aquila District, I've seen a good many Spanish speaking families come to our recruiting meetings, even join our pack --- and then leave before long.

 

 

It seems to me that for Cub Scout packs that are primarily English oriented, there need to be some special methods used to make Spanish speaking families feel welcome and able to understand and use the Cub Scout program. I've come up with some ideas that might be helpful in this regard. These are just ideas, not proven methods:

 

 

1. Have a bilingual Spanish/English pack leader to welcome and be a friend to new Spanish speaking families. The Scout Parents Co-ordinator is a registered Scout position that has two primary purposes 1) welcoming new families to Cub Scouts and 2) signing up families to help provide leadership to the Scout unit. A description of the duties of a Scout Parent Co Ordinator is included as an attachment to this e-mail.

 

A bilingual Spanish/English Scout Parent Co-ordinator might be your point person to keep families or just Spanish speaking families informed and engaged in Cub Scouts. Furthermore, this Scout Parent Coordinator can help co-ordinate Spanish speaking families in providing leadership to the pack in carrying out various activities. For example ---- the Spanish speaking families might take responsibility for organizing the Blue and Gold dinner for the pack and could work together to carry out that task.

 

2. Have Spanish literature available for pack recruiting, pack recruiting nights and whenever it's available for activities. Cub Scout handbooks for Tiger Cubs, Wolves Bears and Webelos are available in Spanish --- having those and other Spanish Scout materials available might be a useful way to invite Spanish speaking families into Cub Scouts.

 

In particular, perhaps District Executives might be encouraged to carry, display and show unit leaders how such material might be used during recruiting nights.

 

There is quite a lot of Scouting material available in spanish. I wonder if there is a list or website that would list much or all of that material and make it available to be easily reviewed and downloaded by unit leaders?

 

3. Often I find older siblings accompanying Cub Scouts to Den and Pack meetings. This might be because parents have other work or family commitments, or perhaps it's because parents don't speak English and feel their attendance would be pointless.

 

Why DOES this occur? Are there ways Cub Packs can be more welcoming --- making a welcoming place for Spanish speaking parents?

 

What role can these older sibling/guardians perform in the pack? What roles should they not perform? How can the pack engage the interest of these older siblings and make them feel welcomed in the pack and den and pack activities?

 

 

4. Working with the Soccer and Scouting Program --- the Chief Seattle Council has an active program aimed at Spanish speaking youth that combines elements of Cub Scouts with a soccer program. When boys are encountered who are in or who are veterans of this program, how can Cub Packs use or relate to the background in Scouting this program provides? How can the two programs be combined? Should regtular Cub Packs make Spanish speaking families that attend a recruiting night aware of the Soccer and Scouting Program? If so, how should this be done and how might the two programs be combined?

 

5. Contacting and inviting Spanish speaking families ---- what methods are effective in contacting the population of Spanish speaking families in the area of a Cub Scout pack? What local groups or organizations might be contacted? How might a local Catholic Parish be contacted to invite Spanish speaking families in particular? What specific methods might be particularly effective when contacting and inviting such families?

 

Going farther afield into Council issues---

 

6. The Chief Seattle Council provides a basic handbook describing Cub Scouting at no charge ----in English. This is "Welcome to the Adventure of Cub Scouting - A Guidebook for New Families." This might be equally valuable to have available in Spanish during recruiting nights for new Spanish speaking families.

 

7. Seattle Scout Shop I visited the Seattle Scout Shop a few days ago. While I've never noticed them being displayed before, Spanish editions of the Cub Scout Handbooks are on display, but they are on the very bottom of the display where they would be hard for people to see. The Scout Shop sales staff said that if they were displayed at the top of the dispaly, people tend to buy the Spanish editions when they want the English edition.

 

A few other items were in Spanish, one the Cub Scout Leader Book. These were located in different places in the store that would be hard to find unless someone asked.

 

Perhaps it would be useful to collect materials printed in Spanish in a common place in the Scout shop so people can browse through it rather than having to hunt for it. It might be worthwhile to look carefully for other Scout literature that might be available in Spanish and decide if additional choices should be stocked.

 

The Scout shop sales staff said they can often help Spanish speakers using a few words of spanish and English the buyers may understand. They can summon Spanish speaking staff from the office for help if needed. Perhaps some sign that INVITES Spanish speakers to ask for help would be worthwhile that would be seen when people enter the Scout Shop.

 

8. There are lots of Hispanic social and political groups around Seattle. Perhaps the Council should form a committee to help promote and support Hispanic Scouting in the Council, and recruiting and retaining Hispanic youth in particular. If that's been done, I've never heard of such council groups. Perhaps that could be asked to make a presentation at Council Cordinated meetings.

 

[pchadbo]

OK Here goes. . .at the risk of seeming intolerant or uncaring or racist or whatever epithet you want to throw, I understand that we have spanish speakers in the communities but shouldn't our focus be on teaching those people ENGLISH to live in an english speaking country rather than accomodating them by or implementing spanish programs?

If I moved to Mexico or Spain or Honduras or any other spanish speaking country I would expect that I (the minority) would accomodate to the culture rather than the culture accomodating me.

Just my thoughts for what they are worth

 

[Basementdweller]

Speak from a position of experience here.......We have a many ethnic groups in our packs schools. The problem with the Hispanic population is the parents are always working. Most live in either extended family households or multiple family households. Most of the parents work multiple jobs often 7 days a week. It is tough for them to find time to bring the boys to scouting. Plus there is a fear in their community of the uniforms.

 

Language is really a non-issue. Most of the hispanic's I have met speak passable english even it they pretend they don't understand.

 

We have some show up to recruiting night but cannot get most of them to sign up. Our pack is made up of 63% not Caucasian.

 

A final thought......We as white americans cannot possibly understand their culture and needs, their family dynamics and social needs are much different than ours. You might be further ahead starting a pure Hispanic pack and act as a consultant or assistant.

 

 

[clemlaw]

It sounds like you're taking a good approach. I'm by no means an expert, but my wife is Mexican, so I guess my son is one of those kids you want to recruit.

 

First of all, I'm not familiar with the program your council has (mine has something similar, though), but I have my doubts about the wisdom of having some kind of special program that targets one particular group. Maybe I'm wrong, and every single Hispanic kid loves soccer, and Anglo kids hate soccer. But I suspect that the kids, whether their families stepped off the Mayflower, whether they're from Mexico, or whether they're from the Planet Zontar, are mostly just interested in having fun.

 

And the kids will do just fine and have fun, whether or not the program is targeted to their particular culture. It seems to me that the main thing is to make sure that the _parents_ find a convenient and welcoming environment.

 

And it sounds like you're thinking along the same lines. Having someone available at meetings (especially recruiting nights, etc.) who can explain things in Spanish (or any other language in the area) would be critical. For the kids, it probably doesn't matter what language the book is in. If Spanish is the main language spoken at home, then for Tigers and Wolves especially, I would recommend that they get the Spanish edition, because it will be the parents who do most of the reading. For Webelos, I might lean toward the English version, if that's the language the kid uses mostly at school, since it's mostly him who is going to be using it.

 

The Pack we were with last year was very multicultural. We had to move because of meeting night issues, and the one we're in this year is a typical suburban pack. On the other hand, within a couple of blocks of our CO, there are apartment buildings full of kids of various colors, languages, and cultures, all of whom would probably love being in Cub Scouts. The Pack doesn't know it yet (I don't want to rock the boat too much as a newbie) but within a couple of years, we're going to start doing some serious recruiting of those kids. So I look forward to seeing your ideas!

 

[clemlaw]

---but shouldn't our focus be on teaching those people ENGLISH to live in an english speaking country---

 

The mission of the BSA has never been to teach adults anything. The mission of Cub Scouts is to provide fun activities for kids. Kids are sponges, and they will soak it up in whatever language it's presented, as long as it is fun.

 

But to get those kids in the door, we need to communicate to the parents that we're going to provide a worthwhile activity, that we're going to provide a safe activity, and that their kids are going to have fun.

 

If we need to find someone who speaks Klingon in order to make sure they know those things, then we should find someone who can explain it to them in Klingon.

[SeattlePioneer]

I don't think English is an issue for the youth, but it appears to be a significant issue for quite a few Spanish speaking parents. Using those who are bilingual to help those parents who aren't is a natural, but is far better if it's organized rather than ad hoc I expect.

 

And sorry, but I'm not going to undertake teaching parents English! Personally I'm not much for the multicultural ideology, but demographics are destiny. And beside, I want to have Hispanic children have the opportunities of Scouting.

 

How to do it is what we have to figure out. And how primarily English speaking Scouts units in particular can do it, which takes advantage of our current strengths.

 

So--- who has a district that is dealing with these issues with training and Roundtable programs?

 

Who thinks this SHOULD be a target for district and Roundtable programs aimed at unit leaders?

 

 

 

 

 

[clemlaw]

I'm not familiar enough with it to know how well it works, but our council has a non-geographic district specifically targeted to the Hispanic community:

 

http://elsol.nsbsa.org/

 

(There are similar districts for the Asian and African-American communities.)

 

If I were in charge, that's not necessarily the way I would do things. But I'm not in charge. And again, I don't really have any personal knowledge about how well it's working.

 

I do know of one Asian troop in our Council that is fabulously successful, and has really made a huge difference for a lot of kids. I suspect most of that success comes from the leadership of that particular troop, although I'm sure the Council also had something to do with it.

[Basementdweller]

It is an issue bigger than a round table can handle..... It is gonna take more than 1 hour to cover the topic, and it will take several months to get any buy in.

 

Your missing the point seattle. We need to offer a product the hispanic community wants.

 

 

[SeattlePioneer]

Hello Basement,

 

 

As I mentioned, I get a fair number of Hispanic families coming to our recruiting nights, and a good many join up. The problem for my pack is rentention.

 

When I started to look at this as a problem, I saw the kinds of issues I raised in my opening post ---- not having someone to welcome parents in Spanish, not having Spanish speakers remain in contact with new families and such.

 

I've also talked to Hispanic youth who were in our council's Soccer and Scouting program that is aimed at Hispanic families but the boys are interested in regular Cub Scouts.

 

The impression I get is that there are significant numbers of Latino families interested in regular Cub Scouts if we offered it on terms that allowed and encouraged them to participate.

 

And there are a lot of Hispanics in schools in my district 30-50% is not unusual in elementary schools.

 

[Eagle92]

Seattle,

 

try this website for starters

 

http://www.scouting.org/sitecore/content/HispanicInitiatives/Resources.aspx

 

As someone mentioned, an hour long RT won't cover the topic adequately. Trust me, I did the pro training at PDL-1 and additional training at NLTC 1998. And I still don't know everything.

 

The website I gave you has contact info at national. if your DE won't call, then you call. When I was a pro, they were the most helpful and knowledgeable folks on Hispanic recruitment.

[clemlaw]

>>>>>We need to offer a product the hispanic community wants.

[DeanRx]

OK - I'll be ready for the flames on this one, but here goes...

 

1) I am CM for a pack in southern California

2) We have many bilingual families in our pack (not just Spanish, but French, Tagalog, and Hindu)

3) We have several parents that speak Spanish, at least one of which is in uniform and ID'd as a Spansih Translator with a BSA translator tag.

 

Other than that - we do not go out of our way to recruit or inhibit the participation of hispanic youth - we recruit youth from 3 different grade schools in the area, plain and simple. You are a boy at one of these schools (or live in the geographical area served by those schools) you are welcome to join our unit.

 

4) IMHO - the BSA's directive towards specific recruiting of hispantics is flat out racist and runs counter to what the BSA stands for.

 

It is NOT inclusive - it makes a special exception / consideration for ONE ethnic group over another and diverts limited resources towards one group of youth that should be used to serve ALL youth regardless of skin color, language, or ethic background. What if this type of recruitment was directed at asians? Blacks? Italians? Pacific Islanders? in favor over other youth?

 

God forbid BSA initiated a campaign to recruit white anglo-saxon protestant kids only - the organization would be crucified on CNN until the policy was changed. Yet they can do this for one ethic group and no one calls out the biogtry of the practice?

 

The entire idea of hispanic, African-American, or other ethnic based units makes my stomache churn. As does LDS only units, or any other unit that affiliates with a church and restricts membership only to youth of that church (not sure if this happens outside LDS, but if it does - its WRONG).

 

We can be inclusive, we can (and should) make people feel welcome and wanted, regardless of ethnicity, religion, or dare I say even sexual orientation?

 

What we in BSA should NOT be doing is singling out a given subset of the youth we serve for any reason. It will only serve to alienate either that group or others who are not part of that subset. You don't need to tell them or do things for the hispanic youth because they (in general) have a higher incidence of multi-generational households, have parents that are working multiple jobs thus not being availible for leadership, or just plain have less disposable income to throw into extracuricular activies than some other youth. You could say the same for almost ANY other minority group in our country (and some of the white kids depending on what part of the country you live in).

 

They don't need this pointed out to them, they already know it. They live it everyday. Is the motivation to increase the roster, or due to majority-guilt, or truely to reach out and help an underserved and often underprivledged subset of youth? Should we not be reaching out to ALL underserved populations then? Not just the one that is growing quickly and has been identified as an untapped reasource by BSA national? What they need is to be treated fairly (the same as everyone else, no better no worse) and be given a good environment to expirience what scouting has to offer.

 

BSA national's direction on hispanic targeted recruitment is offensive, ill-conceived and just plain wrong - I hope they firgure this out soon and get back to the mission of serving ALL youth.

 

I would applaud SeattlePioneer's OP - but after re-reading it, I cannot help but wonder if his unit actually puts into practice 1/2 the ideas he has outlined, what (if any) resources / time / volunteers are left to actually provide PROGRAM to their unit?

[moosetracker]

When I originally read this thread, I quietly backed out and let the flames be thrown from others.. (Still waiting for Kudu..)

 

I agree with DeanRX.. But don't discount the value of what SeattlePioneer is saying, if he lives in an area of predominatly Spanish population.. But, so should the program be rolled out for other Minorities, and not loosing focus on the scouts you currently have for the Scouts you want to reach..

 

And loose the current scouts (And volunteer leaders) you will with the focus of changing the program to be not about camping and scout skills to being about soccer, to reach a different population.

 

So I felt better when SeattlePioneer stated a later post this:

 

 

I've also talked to Hispanic youth who were in our council's Soccer and Scouting program that is aimed at Hispanic families but the boys are interested in regular Cub Scouts.

 

The impression I get is that there are significant numbers of Latino families interested in regular Cub Scouts if we offered it on terms that allowed and encouraged them to participate.

 

 

Yeah Latino families..!!! You get what our elustrioustrious leaders of National do not.. If they want to join soccer, the the public school system has a much better program for that sport then what BSA could give them.. BSA stick to what we do best, offer the minorities, Latino, Italian, French etc.. The program we are good in.. Don't diversify and make our program a bad program for everyone, so we loose those we currently serve, and never recruite those we currently do not.

 

So SeattlePioneer why is that not on your list..?? In fact I would put that on your list as Numero Uno.. and bump your #1 to Numero Dos..

 

Numero Uno.. Keep the BSA program the traditional Scout program, and kick the soccer ball off the playing field.. Then reach the minority scouts, (in their language), with what we offer, with what we are good at, which is already a program that has in it what they would value.. As is.. No changes needed..

 

Here is another question? I don't know the answer because here in New Hampshire we have minorities, but I don't know of any that has taken hold so much that we need to get bilingual people in for.. Do these people want their children to socialize only with their own kind? Or do they hope for their children to become part of the melting pot of American and blend into their new country? If they want to blend in, then again, a selling point is to welcome them into what we currently offer, not to make them their own little subsidies of soccer scouts, that the normal scouting program will at best ignore, and at worse quit if they are not allowed to ignore them.

 

Don't make them a group that is despised because they are another indication of the scouting program falling apart.. Allow them to be welcomed in as a full member of the scouting program, by everyone in scouts who love the program for what it is..

 

What a rotten thing to do to anyone!

[SeattlePioneer]

Wow! Some excellent posts --- thank you!

 

Eagle92, I checked out the website you provided and e-mailed the national group for whatever they cared to send me.

 

 

The Cub Pack I work with is a traditional Cub Scout pack, and I'm an old timey Scoutmaster and Wood Badge (1985-Eagle!) so that aint likely to change. My goal as District Membership Chair is to provide a warm invitation to join Scouting for EVERY youth and family in the community.

 

It seems our invitation hasn't been that warm to Hispanic families so far, and I'm merely trying to figure out how to make it so.

 

This pack orientation is towards families with modest budgets. This year any family that sold $200 in popcorn could avoid our $60 membership fee for 2011 and earn a free membership ----80% of families did that.

 

Perhaps an added plus is that my pack is chartered by a Catholic parish. The pack is kind of stuck on the exterior of the church rather than being a part of the parish community ----another thing I'm trying to fix.

 

Hispanic families looking for an exclusively Hispanic program aren't going to be interested in my unit. All the Scouts would join the common dens. What I'm ooking to do is to remove barriers to Lationo families so they CAN participate and a warm and effective welcome so they feel invited.

 

Anyway, that's what I'm aiming at at this time.

 

 

 

[clemlaw]

>>>>>IMHO - the BSA's directive towards specific recruiting of hispantics is flat out racist and runs counter to what the BSA stands for.