The Scouts BSA task force for diversity, equity and inclusion, one year later

When I spoke to Kaleen Deatherage last October, she was just getting started as the leader of Scouts BSA’s newly-formed task force for diversity, equity and inclusion.

She came to the role with a passion for the inclusion of women and girls in particular, and in the past year has worked with her committee to lead trainings, support local initiatives and create resources for the inclusion of underrepresented groups in Scouting.

I caught up with Kaleen this week to learn more about her committee’s work, and what she hopes to accomplish next. Our conversation is below, edited for clarity and brevity.

Mike De Socio: A year ago, the task force was just getting started. So how has it been going so far?

Kaleen Deatherage: We've had a handful of things that we have accomplished that we feel really good about. We offered a course, version two of a course that started at Philmont last summer, focused on how we better serve women and underrepresented communities in Scouting, with regard to access to all of the different parts of Scouting, encouraging people to think about how they might be called to leadership at various levels, thinking together about how do you build the networks and how do you find your mentors and allies that will really help with that work?

You know, one of the things that has been striking to me in conversations that I've had, and that the committee has had with a number of our leaders, is the recognition that: Women and people of color and people in the LGBTQ community and beyond will get more opportunities to be integrated into Scouting at all levels, as our historically white and male leadership sees that they have a role to play in making sure that we become a more welcoming and more inclusive movement. So that's been something that we've been thinking about a lot this year, [is] inviting our traditional leaders in Scouting to be very active as partners in helping to champion the great skills amongst so many other communities out there, that have a lot to contribute to making our movement truly welcoming.

So that's just been an interesting component. But it was powerful for me when I realized: Lots of this work you and I and others need to do, but lots of this work needs to be done by our traditional leaders, who join, who come alongside us in belief that the Scouting movement is stronger when all of us have the opportunity to use our best skills up and down the the leadership levels that exist in Scouting.

I want to learn a little more about the Philmont class. Who is the audience for that type of thing? Is it an adult training? How does that work?

Yeah, it was a training targeted at adult leaders. There were 17 attendees this year, 15 of which were women and two of which were men. And we were diverse in terms of ethnicity and background. And it was a really powerful week of talking about things like bias, and how do you understand bias? How do you address your own? How do you bring yourself authentically to conversations about bias?

We talked about imposter syndrome, we talked about being an “upstander,” not a bystander. So we talked a lot about [how] the Scout Oath and Law calls us to be upstanders, but that's hard to do. We had some really rich conversations about different ways that people can be upstanders for one another.

We did some sessions around building your mentors, your allies, which was very much that piece where we were talking about: who opened the door for you, who opened the door for me? How did we get to know those people? How have we built our own networks, and/or had opportunities to show what we might be able to share with the movement such that we get additional opportunities to lead?

So it was a really rich course. And I think perhaps the most exciting part—20 people at a time isn't fast enough. So the real hope is that people will take what they learned and go out and share it across their councils and their service territories. And in fact, it's already starting. A couple of the women that were in our class who scout in California have partnered and they're putting on a conference in December that's using a lot of the materials and some of their own, and continuing to share those messages. So to me success—that's exactly what success looks like, is that those that get access to the information and are part of the conversations, think about how they can then take the ownership for going back to their councils and sharing it with a broader audience.

What else has the task force been working on?

We also have been really engaged in the work around trying to help people understand national's intent with linked troops, and just helping to navigate some of the challenges that linked troops are facing. I'm sure that you are aware there are lots of different feelings about the linked troop model. Some units really wish that those troops were fully coed, and it was patrols for boys and girls [together]. And others feel really passionately that it's important for them to be separate.

And there's lots of adolescent brain development research that supports that boys and girls are neurologically—we kind of develop at about the same pace until somewhere around age eight or nine, and then the girls have a sizable advantage until we're about high school age, then the boys catch back up, and we're off to the races as adults. And so it was based on that science1 that the linked troop model was created. And yet, you also have to honor people's point when they talk about boys and girls [being] integrated together in so many other spaces, so does it need to be separate in Scouting?

So we've been helping just try to navigate some of those conversations, provide education, be present to listen to people's feedback. Because I think that's part of our job. We're not just pushing our messages out. I think part of our obligation to our fellow scouts is to hear what they're facing and to hear their perspectives and their wants and needs. So we've been engaged in that dialogue. We did a linked troop webinar … and we had almost 500 people on a call on a Saturday morning. We gave people the opportunity ahead of the webinar to submit questions. I bet we had 150 questions submitted before the webinar. And they fell in two or three main categories: People that really wanted to advocate for, “We should be fully coed;” There were a lot of questions around youth protection and how we successfully camp boys and girls together; And how do we treat respectfully and appropriately our nonbinary youth or our trans youth? And how do we, in camping situations, make sure that we're creating welcoming environments for those youth and also be in adherence with our youth safety policies?

I had [BSA outdoor programs director] Andrea Watson join us on that call. And she did a really good job of helping people think through creating really great spaces at camp. And I love that she emphasized: We don't need a whole different set of rules when we're working with our kids that are nonbinary, or that are trans. All we need to do is understand how to set up environments so that all youth can feel welcome and safe. So that was a big topic.

You mentioned last time we spoke that the culture change necessary to become more inclusive in the BSA is going take time. But I'm curious if you've seen any other evidence in the past year that things are moving in the right direction?

I do feel like we're moving in the right direction, I really do. Sometimes I have to stop and remind myself that it's only been not quite a decade since we opened up our policies to LGBTQ youth and adults. We're not even at five years yet since we let girls into all of our programs. So while the speed that I might personally want to see—I'd love to fast forward a little bit. But I think when you look at our movement, we have been actually making an awful lot of change in the last decade, and I think it's up to us to continue to communicate that that needs to remain a priority.

You know, it’s “tone at the top, mood in the middle, buzz at the bottom.” And we have momentum at all three of those levels, which I think is essential. The change is going to happen, some changes are going to have to start at the top and work their way down. But a lot of the change, where I think the most momentum is, is out in our communities where we're all scouting. And we have both the responsibility and the opportunity to send the message about what we think Scouting needs to look like in 2023 and beyond. And we get to help define, what is a welcoming culture for Scouting? What [does] helpful, friendly, courteous and kind, to every single person that might gain from being a part of the Scouting movement, look like?

And I do think that those conversations are becoming—I'm hearing them more and more. What I noticed [is that] I don't have to bring it up as much anymore. It comes up, others are bringing it up, people are bringing it to me or to others, but it seems to me to be much more a part of our daily lived experience in Scouting. And to me that's super encouraging. Because cultural change happens in that sort of organic way.

I continue to feel really encouraged. I wonder, five years from now if we're having this conversation, what it sounds like. I think it'll be a completely different conversation, even than the one we're having today.

Are there any other wins or challenges from the past year that you want to mention?

The last thing I would say to you is, I am coming to the thinking that we as a movement need to continue to think about the many different communities that we are serving, and the many communities that we may not be serving yet, but might like to be serving. In order to get to that place, there's two things that need to happen. We need to become better listeners, and go out and build relationships in the communities that we think might be interested in Scouting, and understand what those kids in those families would need or want from a Scouting experience. And then I think we have to be willing to think about how we can create additional flexibility in our model, so that people can find the Scouting that fits them. So from my perspective, there is sometimes a “one size fits all” approach to Scouting. And I think what we're all learning is that maybe one size never fit all, but certainly in the 2022-and-beyond world, “one size fits all” isn't going to help us create that equitable, just, inclusive Scouting environment that the growing majority of us want to see.

So I am curious about how we can reconfirm for ourselves: What are the parts of our Scouting program that are core [that], if we didn't protect them, it wouldn't really be Scouting? And then once we understand what those are, and we can articulate those clearly—and I think we can—then we could look at how can we introduce more flexibility or more choice, so that each and every youth can find a type of Scouting and a unit where they really are thriving. I see that more as an opportunity than a challenge. It would be an obstacle if we ignore it, but I think if we address it, it's our opportunity to actually help to grow the movement. I think the more that we can authentically offer that, the quicker we will see the growth that we'd all like to see. So I'm very hopeful that there'll be more conversations like that in the months to come.