[philmont] Wilderness First Aid IS REQUIRED in 2008 and beyond

Craig Winney writes...

<snip> We easily could have a WFA course with 40-50 or more participants. I
am given to understand that attempts to coordinate some sort of WFA
training with the Red Cross in this area has gone nowhere. Not because of
Council, but because of the Red Cross. Logistics and cost of a 2-day course
remain a concern. <snip>

I liken this problem to an unfunded federal mandate. National says do this,
but provides NO guidance as to how to get it done. As we all know, in this
great organization of ours, the bureaucracy can sometimes get in the way of
putting on a good Scout program. In the year since this subject first came
up, has National in Irving offered any guidance? None that I am aware of.
Granted, I'm just a humble UC, but even lowly UCs sometimes hear things that
would benefit their units. Not in this case, at least not yet.

My apologies to the list for being long-winded on this topic, but the
solutions to this problem are not nearly as simple as everyone thinks they
are.

Comments...

Craig is right, the solutions are not simple.

Patriots' Path began exploring what was needed to make this happen when the
initial requirement of WFA for 2007 came out (since delayed to 2008). A
number of meetings with participants from the High Adventure Committee, the
Training Committee, (and maybe others), and the local Red Cross have led to
a "train the trainer" course next weekend. Coming out of that, Council will
have a dozen or more individuals who will be able to run WFA (and other) Red
Cross courses for our Philmont crews and other Scouters. Volunteer trainers
goes a long way toward reducing the costs to the participants, though not
the logistics of getting a fairly large number of people through a 2-day
course.

I have not been directly involved with any of this except for attending an
initial meeting last summer. The agreement between National BSA and the
National Red Cross is a big part of the puzzle. In our case, we have a
single point of contact with the Red Cross (representing the 7 or so Red
Cross organizations within the boundaries of our Council) who is responsible
for coordinating all training, including CPR and standard First Aid in
addition to WFA, with the BSA. Even so, communications with the Red Cross
has at times been frustrating, and like council they too are trying to
figure out their end of the national agreement on the local level with
apparently little guidance from above.

- Al Thomson, Troop 236, Schooley's Mountain NJ
Treks 1999, 2001, and 2003
Autumn Adventures 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006, and 2008?

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Received on Sun Apr 15 09:36:41 2007