Disabilities Awareness
Merit Badge

SCOUTING OFFERS 134-PLUS merit badges, and almost all of them focus on enhancing a Scout’s knowledge and abilities. One badge is different: Disabilities Awareness. MeritBadgeClinicDisabilitiesAwareness “This badge teaches you to place yourself in the shoes of someone else,” says merit badge counselor John Krejcha of Vancouver, Wash. “It’s unique.” It’s also important, given that one in five Americans reports having a disability, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Krejcha doesn’t focus on statistics when he teaches the badge, though. He focuses on people. By talking about famous people who haven’t let their disabilities define them, he helps Scouts see the person — not the wheelchair or the hearing aid or the behavior. “The first person I use is James West, the first chief executive of the BSA, who was disabled [with one leg shorter than the other],” he says. “That ties Scouting directly to a disability.” Ron Luke of Austin, Texas, makes an even tighter connection. For the past two years, Luke, who chairs the advancement committee for the Capitol Area Council’s Armadillo District, has coordinated annual Disabilities Awareness clinics. One of the presenters is a Scout who has cerebral palsy — along with about 80 merit badges. “That’s a very good experience for them,” Luke says. “They seem to get it.” They also get Requirement 3a (“Talk to a Scout who has a disability …”) signed off. Luke holds the clinics at the headquarters of Easter Seals Central Texas, and Easter Seals staff members and volunteers do all the teaching. “Because of that, we have all of the adaptive technology and are able to put on some experiences for the Scouts, such as navigating in a wheelchair and using distorted-vision glasses to give them some ability to relate, however superficially, to problems that people with disabilities have,” he says. Partnering with Easter Seals also helps Scouts complete part of Requirement 7 (“Name five professions that provide services to people with disabilities”) because the teachers include physical therapists, audiologists, social workers and other professionals. “The quality of instruction goes up when the kids are meeting these professionals,” Luke says. “It’s not just a mom or a dad in the troop who’s willing to come in and give a talk.” Of course, giving talks represents just a small part of teaching Disabilities Awareness. Most of the badge involves performing activities, not just learning facts. “We’ve organized it so they move around,” he says. “They’re not sitting in a chair for six hours, and they seem to focus pretty well.” One requirement Scouts must complete outside a class or clinic, Requirement 4, involves noting the accessibility for people with disabilities of two sites (options include a school, a place of worship, a Scout camping site, or a public exhibit or attraction). Krejcha prefers teaching the badge just before his district’s spring camporee so Scouts can work on the Scout camping site option there. “It’s amazing what the kids come up with: ‘This trail needs to be better’ or ‘Maybe they could provide better signage for people who are blind,’ ” he says. One Scout had a different idea: He persuaded his mom to take him to a movie so he could evaluate the theater for accessibility. The Scout came away impressed with the theater’s accommodations, from wheelchair-level countertops at the snack bar to quarterly sensory-friendly movie screenings for kids with autism (during which they turn up the lights and turn down the sound). That Scout also came away with an increased awareness of accessibility issues. Two months after he completed the badge, he approached Krejcha on a campout with ideas about how the camp could be made more accessible. Advocacy — turning ideas into action — might be the hardest part of the badge. Boys who’ve never advocated for themselves can have a hard time advocating for others, which they must do for Requirement 5. Krejcha says his Scouts usually choose option A and make a disabilities-awareness presentation to a Cub Scout pack or other group. Many of Luke’s participants, meanwhile, end up volunteering at Easter Seals (option B) because they’re already familiar with the facility and staff. Ultimately, though, the badge is about attitudes as much as action. If Scouts learn to see the person first and the disability second (if at all), they’ve earned far more than a merit badge.

Sandy Payne, a member of the BSA’s National Special Needs and Disabilities Committee, begins her presentation on how to include those with special needs in Cub Scout day camp by asking a simple question: Can a person who has a disability or special need go Cub Scout camping? Her answer: Absolutely. Payne, who’s also the chair of the Connecticut Rivers Council Special Needs Committee, spends a significant amount of her free time helping families, units, districts and councils make sure they have what they need to ensure that everybody has a memorable Cub Scout camping experience. “We hear this across the board: Can a person join Cub Scouting, or can a person go to summer camp, who has a disability or a special need?” Payne says. “And the answer is a resounding ‘absolutely yes.’ ” Payne recently stopped by #CubChatLive to share her expertise on helping Cub Scouts of all abilities have a life-changing, awesome time at summer camp. Watch our conversation in full below and read on for the highlights.

Madison Trimble is slowly but confidently making her way around a simple maze of PVC pipes laid out on the ground. Every few steps, her feet or her bright yellow cane bumps against a pipe, and she shifts her direction slightly. When she gets to the end, Madison, an 18-year-old Venturer from Crew 5275C of the Alamo Area Council, takes off the blindfold. She looks behind her. “That was hard!” she says. “You have to use your other senses, like hearing and feel.” That’s exactly the point of the disAbilities Awareness Challenge area at the 2017 National Jamboree. Venturers and Scouts experience the challenges faced by individuals with disabilities or special needs.

When Noah White became aware that there was a lack of inclusion for people with disabilities in some public venues within his community, it hit different. Noah, from Troop 107 in Cincinnati, has a sister who has Down syndrome and is hard of hearing. For his Eagle Scout service project, Noah came up with the idea to install a sign at the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden — a place he visited frequently — that would make it easier for visitors of different abilities to enjoy the exhibits. Noah, who took an American Sign Language class in school, wanted to include information on his sign in ASL and a handful of foreign languages. And he wanted to include a section that used the Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS), an alternative communication system designed for people with cognitive, physical and communication challenges. “I noticed that animal exhibits did not have any forms of communication on them aside from English,” Noah says. “A sign was the perfect way to place these forms of communication because it offers a space for colors and multiple communication methods to be displayed in one spot.” As the project progressed, the Cincinnati Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired hopped on board and offered to add Braille.

It’s the kind of question every parent dreams of hearing: “Dad, do you know anywhere I can volunteer?” Two years ago, Trenton Doherty directed that query to his father, and Rich Doherty had a ready answer. Rich told Trenton about The Angelus, an assisted-living facility for people with disabilities such as autism, cerebral palsy and Down syndrome. As a Scout, Trenton welcomed any opportunity to help other people at all times — whether those times earned him service hours for rank advancement or not. To Trenton, The Angelus seemed like a place where he could do a lot of good. One day while volunteering at The Angelus, Trenton met Chris, who has been a resident at the facility for 15 years. Through their conversations, Trenton learned that Chris had been a Scout in Hudson, Fla., in the early to mid-2000s. But that Scouting story ended in a cliffhanger: When Chris was a Life Scout, the troop “up and left,” Rich says. “On the ride home, Trenton said, ‘It wasn’t right that Chris is so close and won’t get his chance to become Eagle!’” Rich remembers.

For more than four decades, the BSA and the Woods Services Foundation have honored Scouters for their exceptional service for Scouts with special needs. It’s called the Woods Services Award, one of the BSA’s special awards for certain accomplishments and service. The partnership with Woods Services, a health management and advocacy center for children and adults with disabilities, created the award in honor of Luther Wellington Lord, a Scouter and a residential supervisor at the Langhorne, Pa., center for more than 23 years. Lord started and oversaw three packs, three troops and three Explorer posts at the Woods Services schools. In the March-April 1976 issue of Scouting, it was reported Lord had recruited more than 240 youth — or 55% of the schools’ population — to sign up for Scouting. Ever since the award’s inception in 1978 — two years after Lord’s death — it has been given to one adult leader every year for leading and serving Scouts with special needs for at least three years.