Ad Altare Dei
Ad Altare Dei
Planning a Class
Planning a Class
Kick it off! Best scouting Year Ever!
Who can attend your Ad Altare Dei Classes? Although the program states that Scouts need to be at least 13 years old to take this class, we recommend screening these young Scouts for maturity. Typically, we will have more success with Scouts 13 ½ to 14 years of age and older. A thirteen year old may take the program, but we suggest using your best judgment as to whether the younger Scouts will be able to carry on a discussion about their faith and the course material. These sessions can be a bit hard for some younger Scouts, and a year can make a big difference.
One of the first things you will need to do is determine how many Scouts are going to be taking the course. If you are planning a course just for your Troop, there may only be a few Scouts. If you invite Catholic Scouts from other Parishes and/or non-Catholic Troops, you will obviously have a larger group. Larger groups, especially when Scouts from other Troops are in attendance, tend to make the course more interesting. On the other hand, smaller groups allow for more personal, one-on-one interaction and tend to move along faster. Your circumstances and available resources will determine what circumstance is best for your program.
First identify who is eligible to receive the emblem, then take steps to recruit those Scouts. You will need to gain not only the Scouts commitment to the program, but also the parents and leaders of your troop, or the leaders of the other units. This program is a huge undertaking for these Scouts and their families, so you will need to make sure everyone involved commits themselves to the program. Next you need to consider:
Promotion & Recruitment
When to Hold Your Sessions - Planning your Calendar
Facilities – where you will Meet?
Number of trained adult and/or Scout counselors needed
Counselor Meetings
Planning Your “Kick off” Meeting
Program Materials and budget needed for each session
Recruiting Scouts from just your Troop is a fairly easy process, especially if you have been running a program for more than a year. You can simply make an announcement at several of the Troop meetings and check your Troop roster for available Scouts. A flyer may be sent home with the Scouts.
If you decide to open your class up to Catholic Scouts from other Parishes and/or non-Catholic Troops, your challenge in recruiting these Scouts becomes a little more involved. Start early. A couple of months before your classes are scheduled to begin make an announcement and pass out flyers at your District Roundtable. This is your best chance at finding Scouts from non-Catholic Units. If your district has an e-mail group discussion list, send several messages to Scoutmasters and parents. Check with any other local Catholic Churches and find out if they have a Scout Troop. If their Troop does not have an Ad Altare Dei class scheduled, invite their Scouts. Finally, check with your councils Catholic Committee on Scouting's Religious Emblems Counselor and have them announce your class at their committee meeting and in any publications they may have. If you are trying to recruit from a larger geographic area, you can also advertise in the “Public Service Announcement” (PSA) area of your local newspaper or local television channel if available. These PSA's are usually free of charge. Combine your recruiting efforts with the Counselors for the Protestant Religious Programs in your district.
Determining when to have sessions is always a challenge. You will be competing with other Scouting activities, church events, sports, school activities, and family events. There never seems to be a perfect time, yet all of the sessions MUST be completed in order for the Scouts to earn this award. Because this course is held over a long period of time create, publish your class dates well in advance. Check with the facility you use well in advance.
To begin with, collect as many “calendars” as you can that may affect the Scouts participation. This should include the troop calendar, the school calendar, the parish calendar, and dates for any home games of major sports teams in your area. Many Scouts join their parents for Major League Baseball or NFL Football games with would keep them from attending a session. Decide on the day of the week and the time of day. You have many competing schedules and events. We have found that early Sunday morning works best to avoid almost all conflicts. Starting at 8:00 a.m., we can attend Mass together as a group and start our sessions by 9:15 am after Mass. We can then be done with our sessions by 11:45 a.m. If the Scouts do this throughout the course they will have the added bonus of earning the Don Bosco Award. You will have to determine what day and time is best for your situation, we make this suggestion only because it has worked well for us for many years.
You will need to come up with a total of 12-15 session dates in a five month period. We start in early September and finish by the end of January so the Scouts can receive their AAD Award on Scout Sunday, which is the 1st Sunday in February. There are 4 dates of the Sacraments that will take one session each, one Sacrament—The Eucharist, will take two session dates, two sessions at a retreat (two days), two make up sessions, a final review date, and a Board of Review. We incorporate 2 sessions (Chapters 5 and 7) into the retreat. The retreat we use is a set date in January at Conception Abbey near Marysville in Northern Missouri. If you decide to use the September – January timeline, take into consideration the holidays, weather, and family travel during breaks from school.
Class size will determine your facility needs. For a small group, holding the sessions in the Ad Altare Dei counselor's home may work. For larger groups of 5 or more, a school or church room suited for larger gatherings is a better choice. In all cases, [adherence to the Boy's Scouts of America] BSA “Two Deep Leadership” policy must be observed, so do not forget to add adult leaders and counselors when determining the size of the facility. Also, keep in mind that each session is approximately 2 hours so restrooms are necessary. If using a school or church, make sure to “book” the facility for all of the dates you will need during the full time of your course. In some cases, this will mean booking your course months or up to a year in advance.
The room or area should have adequate lighting and table space for the Scouts to spread out their manuals, bible, and notebook. A dry erase or chalk board is handy for group discussions. Once a facility is chosen, determine who will have access (keys, codes, etc.) and who will be responsible to open and close each session.
The number of adults and/or trained AAD counselors you will need is, again, determined by class size. You must observe the BSA “Two Leadership” policy at all times. This usually means having at least 4 adults present, (not all of the adults need to be trained counselors.) This will allow for two adults to remain if a Scout needs to be taken out of the session for any reason.
You will need to have at least one counselor trained and certified by your local Catholic Committee on Scouting. This person will need to complete the AAD Counselor Training prior to holding their AAD classes. You should have enough [trained] counselors (adults or “AAD alumni Scouts”) to make the sessions interesting. Occasionally, you can also have a “guest speaker” come in and do part of a session. Your local Parish Priest, a Deacon, a member of the Knights of Columbus, or other religious in your parish are some examples. Perhaps you have a married couple in your parish to do the session on the sacrament of marriage. Anything you can do to make the sessions more vibrant and exciting will add to the overall success of the course.
Each session or chapter of the AAD manual is broken up into four distinct areas. They start off with a brief goal for the session. The first section, “Life Experience”, draws upon familiar experiences for the Scout in relation to the Sacrament such as family or Scouting events, Scouting values and activities and Judeo-Christian values. The second section, “Activity” (crossword puzzle, word matching, scrambled words, etc.), expands on those values and adds Christian and Catholic teaching in and interactive format. The “Faith Response” is a realization of their growth in faith by application of the principals they have learned, usually though some form of Christian service. We have had great success using a “tag team” teaching method where each area of the chapter is taught by a different person. This helps keep the Scouts focused and makes each segment stand out. We also suggest using AAD alumni Scouts, who have earned their award to help teach the classes. During each course, keep an eye out for those outstanding Scouts who you think may be able to come back the following year and help teach your classes. In some cases, you can even “break-up” your teaching assignments even further based on your counselor's knowledge & abilities. The important thing is to involve all of the Scouts, keep the discussion lively, and make it fun. Having each Scout, in order around the room, give the answer to each the part of the chapter will help keep their attention and make them keep up in their books. Having rewards for good answers help keep it fun. We use candy for good answers, broccoli for not so good or non-answers. That helps keep it fun.
Typically, all of the counselors, adults, and alumni Scouts will meet at some point between or before each session in a counselor meeting to determine who will teach what at the session. This is also a time to do a “mini critique” of your last session and discuss what worked and what areas could be improved. Remember, the Scouts will NOT know any difference if you make minor mistakes so save any discussion about how you did for your counselor meeting. We also use these sessions to coach the youth and new counselors. Each counselor meeting should have the following questions answered prior to each session:
♦ Who will be at the Session?
♦ Who will teach each segment? (assign tasks by page and lesson number)
♦ Who will be bringing refreshments? (Coffee, juice, crackers, donuts?)
♦ Who will keep records of attendance?
♦ Who has access to the facility?
♦ Who is responsible for program material?
♦ Will there be “Guest Speakers”?
♦ Who will open & lock up?
BSA Policy requires all registered Scouters to provide personal references to the Chartering Organization and completion of the BSA “Youth Protection Online or course Training.” It is wise for the Diocese to mirror this policy when registering Counselors with the Diocesan Committee. While individuals who are working as Counselors can be registered with Boy Scouts of America, BSA does not register Religious Emblems Counselors. The emblem programs are NOT BSA programs. They are church programs, developed, published and administered by the churches. Therefore, Counselors are the responsibility of the churches. In the Roman Catholic Church structure this responsibility resides with the diocesan whose policy statements are to be followed.
This means is that each AAD Counselor needs to be a registered adult with the BSA at either a unit or district level and take the Youth Protection Training prior to starting the course. In addition, the Diocese of Kansas City and St Joseph requires that any adult that works with youth under the age of 18 must ALSO take the diocesan Youth Protection Training “VIRTUS® Protecting Gods Children for Adults” before working with the Scouts. All priests, deacons, school teachers and caregivers, Parish Directors of religious education and Youth Ministry and all volunteers in parish and school programs for children and youth must attend and be certified. The forums are offered at no cost and a schedule of upcoming dates can be found at www.virtusonline.org/virtus where you can also register for the training. To preview the program click on http://www.virtus.org/virtus/preview_pgc.cfm. Once registered with the BSA, Youth Protection Training can be taken on-line at www.hoac-bsa.org or at any District Roundtable. The training at the diocesan level can be a bit more difficult as it is only offered sporadically throughout the diocese.