Donate
Increasing Opportunities for Community Service
Posted on August 31, 2022 at 8:58 AM by Joanna Lee
Community service presents opportunity for cadets
Awards program & training tools are on the drawing board
What’s the biggest outcome cadets obtain from CAP? They develop leadership skills. In fact, cadets significantly outpace ordinary youth in the leadership domain.* But do our cadets apply those leadership skills to make their schools and communities better? The cadets say no. In fact, of the many possible outcomes youth reap thanks to CAP, cadets rated that the lowest scoring.
Restated, cadets know how to lead but they don’t lead outside of CAP. There’s an opportunity here. The CAP Strategic Plan calls for us to increase cadets’ opportunities for community service and service-learning. How might we do that?
First, we need to give squadrons some ideas for service projects that are especially suited to cadets. The National Cadet Advisory Council is generating interesting possibilities, so stay tuned.
Second, adult leaders need tools to make service activities meaningful. Service projects ought to help communities while cadets build leadership skills and put the Core Values into action. Look for a recipe-like guide, aligned to National Youth Leadership Council standards on service-learning, to become available.
Third, we need incentives to motivate squadrons and individual cadets to try community service. On the individual level, that will probably entail adjusting the Community Service Ribbon criteria to allow CAP-centered service projects to count toward the ribbon. On the squadron level, service projects should count for the Quality Cadet Unit Award. We’ll develop these three components of a service-learning program during the coming year.
Cadets possess outstanding leadership skills that their communities need. Service projects are a great way for everyone to win.
*Source: Annual Cadet Survey 2020-2021, using the Youth Experiences Survey 2.0 (Hanson & Larson, 2002). Cadets reported (and adults corroborated) their developing leadership skills as their highest outcome from CAP (3.58 / 4.0 scale). On a benchmark report about youth in dozens of other types of organized activities (Denault & Poulin, 2016), the median outcome in the leadership skills category was 2.9. When asked if they use leadership skills to improve schools and communities, cadets rated that outcome at 2.5, while their peers achieved at 2.67
Categories: New Ideas
