Unlock Leadership Skills with the Den Chief Service Award in Scouting America

Hey, Scouter Stan, let’s talk a little bit about the Den Chief and their role and responsibilities within a pack and a den. They’re there to help the Den leader do activities in support of a scout troop or a Venture crew. Now, one of the big things that goes on with the Den Chief role is the Den Chief Service Award. This is a way of recognizing scouts, young leaders, actually achieving something only available to Den Chiefs. This recognizes the youth for all the service that they have given to the den. For the Den leader, the Den Chief plays a critical role in the progression from Cub Scouts into Scouts BSA. Understanding that Cub Scout and Den Chief kind of a recruitment thing is very important and we need to recognize that in addition to the service award.

One of the big benefits you get out of having a Den Chief is that they are going to be there as an example of leadership for the Den and naturally those Cub Scouts will want to crossover into that troop. That is a huge benefit. It keeps the troop alive. It gives a place for the Cub Scouts to actually go to when Cub Scouting is finished. So that crossover process is very important, and in that, a critical role is a Dent Chief.

We need to recognize Dent Chiefs for their service award and only youth members can work as a Dent Chief within a Cub Scout pack. Now they can come from Scouts, BSA troops, or they could be from a Venture Crew. Adults are not eligible for this award because it’s only for Den Chiefs, which are youth in Scouts, BSA, or Venture. Let’s quickly go over some of the requirements.

The Den Chief Service award requirements are:

1. Serve in a pack faithfully for one full year. – Now this might be a little strange for some troops. Some troops have a six-month rotation, as long as they do two of those making it a full year, it should be just fine. So it’s important to keep that as part of their tenure when they’re working with that den. It would be very easy to put Den Chiefs from the oldest Cub Scouts down. So all of the Arrow of Lights would have a Den chief. The next one down would be Webelows and then so on. So it just goes in that kind of progression. So if you have that, that’s the best. Now you might have those six months so that they spend 6 months with the We Blows and then they crossover into Arrow of Light and another Den Chief is there. It’s just a matter of, getting, the rotation going and then the last six months could be that one from the Webelows. So it depends on what you want to do as far as giving service to the Den.
2. The Den Chief training can be done online and live. The Den Chief training that is offered that’s live is intended for the den leader also. The adult and leader plus any other adults that want that type of training should be at the Den Chief training. That live training is awesome and it is critical to being a good Den chief.  
3. The Den Chief needs to know and understand the purpose of Cub Scouting.
4. The Den Chief needs to help Cub Scouts achieve the purpose of Cub Scouting
5. Be active as an assistant to the Den leader at meetings, activities, and camping.
6. Set a good example with your attitude and being in the proper uniform.
7. Be a friend to the Scouts in the den. After all, a Scout is Friendly.
8. Take part in the weekly meetings. Now this might be Den meetings, Troop meetings, or Crew meetings. It could be a pack meeting. These are all meetings that go on and Den Chiefs need to be a part of that.
9. Assist the Den and the monthly pack program. – What that means is that a lot of times Den Chiefs are kind of the in-between the example of having fun, running games, doing different kinds of openings. There’s a lot for them to do.
10. Meet the needs of the adult members of the pack, the den, the troop, or the crew.
11.  Complete four of these projects—this is a laundry list of different things that you could do. But you have to do four of these items. So, there are a lot of times this one is left to the end because the Den Leader does a lot of this stuff naturally. As they’re working with the Den now in this, they have A through H as a possibility.

1. The first one would be to staff a special Cub Scout event. Now this could be put on by your district or your council. There are all kinds of different things that go on. This could be something like a Scout Show, some kind of Bicycle Rodeo, something of that nature, something that’s put on in a group for the Cub Scouts.
2. They could serve on the staff at Cub Scout Day Camp or Resident Cub Camp.
3. They must advance at least one rank. – That would be from first class to star.
4. Assist in the recruiting team for the Cub Scouts. – It’s wonderful for parents to see older scouts. That is kind of the agenda for a lot of parents to turn their Cub Scout into a scout and seeing that at recruitment is awesome.
5. Assist three Cub Scouts to become Webelos Scouts.
6. They can also assist three of the Cub Scouts to become Webelows or they could assist 3 Arrow of Lights to join a troop hopefully, the Den Chiefs troop.
7. Help plan and carry out a joint pack/troop activity. This could be a “Meet the Troop” campout. This could be something that working with the troop can do a lot of recruiting with the pack.
8. Recommend to the Scoutmaster or Venture Crew advisor who would be a good Den Chief as a replacement.

As Den Chief, they have cords, and the cords will vary in color and arrangement, but the one that they want the most is of course, the Den Chief award. It’s a red, white, and blue cord that they can wear for the remainder of the time. As a youth, this is prestigious recognition of both Scouts and as a Scout leader to the pack and to the troop or crew.

We must recognize it on both levels. In a pack, it’s usually done at a pack meeting.

For a troop or crew, it’s done at a court of honor. Now both of these need to occur.

We need to have the Dead Chief award given at the pack, crew, or troop level, and this recognition is important.

How to get the award? The eligibility is for the youth and all of the requirements should be in the Den Chief handbook. Now if the requirements change and the Den Chief has already started their grandfathered into the old requirements. This is true with merit badges and rank advancement. They do not have to start over. They have to do all of the requirements that are on that award list.

Now there is something quite controversial about the Den Chief award. The Den Chief is allowed to wear the red, white, and blue cord the rest of the time that they are a youth within a troop. Once they turn 18, the adult uniform is adopted. Now for many years, I think about 30, we have been trying to get a Den Chief knot. This square knot is over the pocket, but unfortunately National is currently cleaning out a lot of the old square knots and kind of deprecating it down. So it’s very difficult to get a new one in when you eliminate a lot of the old square knots for the adult leaders. Now there is sort of a little bit of a workaround and this is purely to get the attention of how important this is with National. The adult can wear the Den Leader award with the troop or crew device/pip on it. At that point it it shows on the uniform that yes, it’s an adult square knot, but it was earned as a youth. That’s the interesting thing. So it’s just to get the awareness out there that it’s so important that we continue to recognize the Den Chief Award. Otherwise, once they turn 18, it’s canceled, it’s removed. And scouting doesn’t do that. We don’t do it with Arrow of Light. We don’t do it with Eagle. We just don’t do that. We need to recognize the Den Chief Award.

Maybe this will spur them on to come up with a square knot. So that’s my call to action. I want to help recognize Den Chiefs for all they do for the dens and their troop. As recruiters, these are critical skills that we need to recognize as leaders, and we do so much for our scouts. Keep up that good hard work, and I hope to see you on the trail.