YMCA Adventure Guides : A Program Overview

During the past two years, YMCA of the USA staff members, local volunteers, and program members have worked hard to design an alternative to the YMCA Indian Guides program. The process began in December 2001 with a task force charged to review the program to determine necessary changes and to determine the suggested criteria for an alternative program. A team of YMCA staff and volunteers met in March 2002 to further develop the program. During the summer of 2002, we asked local Y staff members and volunteers to give feedback on a couple of program options. Responding to concerns that the program was too loosely structured and lacked a theme, we went back to work. In January 2003, yet another team of staff members and volunteers met to finalize the program. The result: YMCA Adventure Guides. The preliminary feedback we've received for YMCA Adventure Guides has been favorable, and we have heard that many Y's are ready to move forward.

YMCA Adventure Guides is designed for a parent and his or her 5- to 9-year-old child. In YMCA Adventure Guides, the focus is on the parent's role as a guide in a child's life. Parents lead, direct, supervise, influence, and teach while presenting opportunities for children to explore the world around them. They lead by example as they set their children on a path through life. The program experience begins as a side-by-side journey for a parent and child, until the child is launched into more advanced, independent activities.

In YMCA Adventure Guides, the journey happens within the context of a small Circle community. The Circle is the program's basic unit, providing a structure, a sense of community, and support for all group activities. Adventure Guides (parents) and Explorers (children) meet in Circles twice a month and participate in Expedition adventures (e.g., overnight camping) throughout the year. The goals, purpose, aims, motto, pledge, activities, structure, leadership, rituals, and theme are as follows.

Program Goals

• Foster companionship and understanding; set a foundation for positive, lifelong relationships between parent and child.
• Build a sense of self-esteem and personal worth.
• Expand awareness of spirit, mind, and body.
• Provide a framework to meet the mutual needs of parents and children for spending enjoyable, constructive, and quality time together.
• Enhance the quality of family time.
• Emphasize the vital role that a parent plays in the growth and development of a child.
• Offer an important and unique opportunity to develop and enjoy volunteer leadership skills.

Program Purpose
To foster understanding and companionship between parent and child.

Program Aims

1. To be clean in body and pure in heart
2. To be friends forever with my dad/mom/son/daughter
3. To love the sacred circle of my family
4. To listen while others speak
5. To love my neighbor as myself
6. To respect the traditions and beliefs of all people
7. To seek and preserve the beauty of Our Creator's work in forest, field, and stream

Program Motto
"Friends Forever"

Program Pledge

"We, YMCA Adventure Guides and Explorers, through friendly service to each other, to our family, to this Circle (or Expedition), and to our community, seek a world pleasing to the eye of Our Creator."

Program Activities
The core of the program is Circle meetings and Expedition adventures.

• Circle meetings and gatherings: Circles meet biweekly or monthly in a family home and once a month for Circle adventures.
• Expedition adventures: Periodically, Circles come together for Expedition adventures such as a parade, party, or campout.
• Family-oriented activities: Program activities typically include games, crafts, songs, stories, skits, camping, and family adventures.

Program Structure
Participants are grouped as follows:

• Guide and Explorer: Parent and child pair
• Circle: Group of Guides and Explorers
• Expedition: Group of Circles within a YMCA, often, though not always, grouped by gender (e.g., father-daughter Expeditions, father-son Expeditions)
• Federation: Group of Expeditions within a YMCA association (e.g., the father-son and father-daughter Expeditions together make up a Federation)

Program Leadership

The program is run by YMCA staff members and program volunteers. Volunteers are recruited or elected by Circle members and assume a variety of offices and responsibilities for different roles.

Program Rituals

The YMCA Adventure Guides program is based heavily on rituals and traditions that bring a sense of continuity, community, intrigue, and magic to the program. These rituals and traditions include those listed here as well as others, depending on each YMCA's choices.

• Program names
• Circle and Expedition property
• Program attire
• Rites of passage
• Awards
• Ceremonies

Program Theme

At the forefront of the program are the compass points. The compass points lend an inspiration for activities but also provide a framework from which to build an adventure theme. The compass-points approach retains the program's focus on strengthening parent-child relationships through small Circle communities while participating in activities that help meet the program's objectives. The four main directional points on the compass are the essential components of the program:

• The Family is True North-the focal point of the program.
• Nature and the camping experience are integral parts of the program.
• The spirit of the program is experienced through belonging to a small community called a Circle.
• Fun is the magic of the program.

The YMCA core values make up the other directional points:

• caring
• honesty
• respect
• responsibility

Along the journey, adults should model, teach, and demonstrate these values. They also should give children many opportunities to practice and celebrate these values and to discuss behavior that is inconsistent with the values. Initially, these values will provide guidance in helping children select activities, make decisions, and decide on an appropriate course of action, both within the program and in all aspects of their lives. Ideally, as children grow, these values will become their own internal compasses.

YMCA Adventure Guides Powerpoint Presentation

The National Advisory Committee for YMCA Adventure Guides developed a PowerPoint presentation to give YMCA staff, volunteers, and program members an overview of YMCA Adventure Guides. The YMCA Adventure Guides PowerPoint presentation can be viewed or downloaded by clicking HERE. If you are unable to download this presentation, request a copy by contacting Susan Jarocki at susan.jarocki@ymca.net or 1-800-872-9622, ext. 8662.