Session 4 - TA Recruitment

Session objectives

• To identify the skills and qualities of an effective TA.
• To encourage TAs to think of ways in which they can recruit more TAs.

Great for

• Getting your TAs together to discuss issues.
• Getting your TAs to think about the responsibilities of their role.
• Generating ideas for TA recruitment.
• Planning for future recruitment.

Resources

• Marker pens.
• Flipchart paper.
• Post-it notes.

Time

This will depend on the number of participants that you have in attendance, but will be between an hour and an hour and a half. This session will be shorter if you use the lists of skills and qualities already generated in the TA toolkit session.

Method

In small groups, ask TAs to draw a person/face on a piece of flipchart paper to represent a TA. Advise that you would like them to think about and discuss what skills and qualities are needed to make an effective TA: listening skills, patience, being organised, etc. Ask groups to list these on the flipchart paper around the TA that they have drawn.

Trainer note

If you chose to run this session after the TA Toolkit session the lists of skills and qualities that participants have already produced can be used for this task. It is worth bearing in mind that the appointment of TAs does differ locally and some Counties may have devolved this responsibility to the Districts. You will need to find out how TA recruitment is run in your County before running this session. Once groups have finished listing the skills and qualities, ask groups to think about and discuss where they might be able to get people with some of these skills from. Ask them to record their ideas on Post-it notes and stick them around their TAs. Some ideas to help generate conversations if TAs are struggling with this part of the task are listed below:

• Recent/existing Wood Badge holders.
• GSLs or line managers.
• Individuals who are looking for support roles, but not regular involvement in Scouting. #SkillsForLife 13
• Scout Active Support members.
• Retired Scouters.
• Other organisations – Guide Leaders, other volunteers, etc.
• People from local schools/colleges.
• Members of the local community.
• Professional coaches, mentors or assessors.
• Professional managers

Ask groups to feed back their ideas. When taking feedback, it may be useful to have members of the training team, or any other relevant colleagues, on hand as there may be action points for them to take away or local issues that they need to comment on. It is a good idea to type up feedback afterwards and to send it round to the course participants, with agreed actions, so that they can see that their suggestions are being taken forward and acted upon. If the following points are not mentioned by the groups, it is worth highlighting them:

• Before any recruitment is done, TA teams may need to take a look at their team and ensure everyone is still happy in the role and wants to continue.
• It is useful to review how learners are allocated to TAs – are there any particular roles or types of learners that need TAs? If so, this should be factored in when recruiting TAs.
• TAs do not come ready made, so it is unlikely that they will find many people with all the required skills and qualities. However, developing people with potential through training and support can help to develop a strong TA team.
• It is important to focus on what is achievable – they are not going to recruit 10 new TAs straight away, but persistence and planning can pay off.
• They should look everywhere for potential new TAs – you never know where you might be able to find them.
• Recruitment for all adult roles, not just TA roles, is the responsibility of everyone in Scouting.
• TAs do not need to be experienced Scouters – they just need the right skills and qualities for the role.
• Any new TAs that are recruited will need to go through the relevant appointment process. More information on the appointment process can be found in POR Chapter 16: Adult Roles
• It's worth remembering that some TA’s might have additional skills that may be suitable to be TA (Managers and Supporters) and these may come from external sources. They may not have the knowledge to be suitable for TA generic Wood Badge but may have managerial skills that could be transferable to managers and supporter TA's.