Coast Guard Auxiliarists are often challenged, as is common in any organization consisting of "part timers," by the need to educate our newest members and quickly get them "up to speed" with the workings of the organization and its missions. This challenge is often times not just limited to groups of part timers, as I know that many companies struggle to balance initial training and education with the operational need to get their people out to the field.Last week my co-instructor (our Flotilla's Human Resources Officer), Emily Johnson, and I began teaching a new course that we developed for our newest recruits and transferees to Flotilla Arlington | Northern Virginia. The course, which we call "Basic Introduction to the Coast Guard," (BIC) is the product of months of development and refinement taking us to the point where we are now teaching it for the very first time. While it draws its content from pre-existing official sources (meaning that we did not make up the content), it packages that content in such a way that is accessible, yet comprehensive enough for either someone just joining the Auxiliary or for a more experienced member wishing to learn what they may never have when the were just getting started. The course seeks not only to convey knowledge of facts and procedures, but also to share core values -- an awareness of the culture of service and leadership that surrounds the Coast Guard and Coast Guard Auxiliary.
I know that many other Flotillas, Divisions, or even Districts have done similar work in the past, so in the spirit of addressing a common need, we wanted to share the program and our experience teaching it for the first time with our shipmates around the country. I'll be blogging about our experiences and sharing our progress from now through March when the course concludes, and I invite comments, thoughts, and feedback as we seek to constantly improve the experience for our new Auxiliarists here in Northern Virginia -- I hope that you will engage with us here on my blog, and that you will feel free to use any or all of the course material in your unit.
We've established an online file cabinet at http://link.cgauxnet.us/bic where all of the course content is posted. I'll make sure that the latest file versions are posted there as we continue to make refinements and improvements.
"Administration and Paperwork" -- some housekeeping to get things started
We began last week with a brief overview of a few key administrative items, including the course components, enrollment requirements, several membership statuses (most notably the "Approval Pending" phase) that new members ought to be aware of, procedures for keeping and logging time, the chain of leadership, and where to go for help.
At this point we distributed the course pack, which includes note taking guides for all of the presentations, as well as the workbook and several blank time sheets so that students could begin tracking hours right away (check out this post for more info on logging time). The workbook presents each of the training components, including reading and discussion of the book Character in Action (by retired USCG Commandant, ADM James Loy), completion of a safe boating course, completion of the Incident Command System 100 (ICS-100) online course, and the knowledge items that each student should learn from the various presentations and discussions. We also explained to students that this course is an orientation -- not a nationally promulgated course that will result in a qualification -- and how each member should be actively considering what he or she wants to do within the Auxiliary so that they can get registered for the specific operational training that they will require.
As I said, I'll be blogging about our progress as we move forward, so expect several posts each week sharing a new topic that we covered. Our current students can follow along here and offer feedback or ask questions, while folks elsewhere do the same and help us to improve. We are teaching the course as a 2.5 hour session on each of five Mondays over the course of about two months (snow in the mid-Atlantic has caused us some problems). There are any number of ways to break the content down, though, including a concentrated weekend, or shorter duration sessions over more weeks or days. I suspect the "best way" will vary from group to group.
If you have questions or thoughts, I hope you'll leave a comment below to get in touch. Stand by for more, and thank you to all who are following along with us for your service to the Coast Guard and to our nation!
