We offer special needs courses at the council’s two main training events:

• The University of Scouting: Open to all Scouters and typically held the last Saturday in October.
• The Commissioners’ College: For Commissioners only, usually offered the first Saturday in February.

Please consult our calendar to locate the latest information for this year’s events.

The offerings are typically based on the BSA curricula (materials for which are available online)

• BCS 200 Special Needs Awareness
• CED 713 Special Needs Designation and Advancement Procedures
• BCS 118 Serving Scouts with disAbilities
• CED 714 Special Needs Scouting – ADHD
• CED 715 Special Needs Scouting – Autism
• BCS 201 Camping Considerations for Scouts with disAbilities
• BCS 202 Inclusion – The Key to disAbilities Awareness
• MCS 322 Advanced Scouting for Disabilities

Specific courses to be offered vary depending on student interest and instructor availability. We encourage you to sign up early to help firm up the offerings.

We periodically offer Special Needs Roundtables on various topics. Training can be also be provided on request for district Roundtables, summer camps, Wood Badge, NYLT, unit meetings, etc.  To make such arrangements, please get in touch with us. 

We encourage that units make it a policy to build special needs awareness into their annual programs. Some natural ways to do this are to pursue Cub Scouts Disabilities Awareness Academics Belt Loop and Pin for Cub Scouts and the Disabilities Awareness Merit Badge for Boy Scouts. Short videos are another way to stimulate awareness and dialogue.