CAP Diversity/Urban Study Group

Started by RADIOMAN015, May 12, 2011, 12:13:35 AM

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

RADIOMAN015

Also in the NEC slides are funding for $30K worth of travel for this diversity group & urban unit study.

Personally, I think it's going to be an uphill challenge to recruit in the inner cities.  The problem is basically the cost of entry into CAP when compared to programs offered at the YMCA, YWCA, and even some other organizations.  Unless locally some grant money can be obtained I don't think this will work out, especially with the drop out rate of other cadets at 50%. 

As far as the other diversity study goes we should select the best man or woman for the volunteer leadership positions.  Lets hope we don't get into some stupid quota system :-\ :(
RM   

ol'fido

"Let's hope we don't get into some stupid quota system :-\ :(" Dude, let's not go there.
Lt. Col. Randy L. Mitchell
Historian, Group 1, IL-006

NIN

Having grown up around a large urban area, and seen urban/inner-city units come and go, I think the potential for success are a total mixed bag.  (I won't even tackle the diversity issue here, but suffice to say that its _difficult_ in some areas of the country to obtain and maintain true diversity in a CAP unit due to the diversity, or lack thereof, in the local community)

Note I did not suggest that its a hopeless situation and that we should abandon all hope for urban/inner-city units. Far from it.

I do think that the CAP cadet program and its aerospace components can be effective in an urban/inner-city environment if done right, with appropriate community support and involvement, and with the right mix of command guidance, leadership and supervision (more on that last part in a minute).

Interestingly, a model for urban units might actually come from NYC: http://www.phoenixnyc.org/pages/nyc_group.html  (I note from this page that there is only ONE unit besides the Group HQ actually in Manhattan, but there are units throughout the boroughs.  IIRC, maybe 16-18 years ago, the Academy squadron met in Manhattan, but I could be wrong about that)  Also, a unit that I am familiar with that is successful in the urban environment is the Boston Cadet Squadron.  I'm sure there are others in large urban areas around the country.

The units that I have seen fail badly in the urban/inner-city situation did so for a variety of reasons.  (mind you, these are based on my own observations, not any empirical evidence.  YMMV, as always)

First, CAP is not cheap. If you're a single mom with two teenagers, working two jobs and trying to make ends meet, the added expense of CAP is probably not going to be something you can afford readily for your kid who wants to be a cadet.  Thats a hard reality.  If you live in an urban area that is home to folks who are substantially on the lower-end of the socio-economic spectrum, you're going to be hard pressed to get cadets without some sort of "help" to the unit to defray costs.  I point to the various and sundry units I've seen come and go in Detroit over the last 30 years.   (this is where community involvement may come into play)

Second, another factor I've seen that sets a unit up for failure immediately is a failure to embrace the CAP culture, ethics and standards.   This is where good leadership, guidance and supervision from above can help, but it also requires that the unit leadership be similarly enlightened and willing to toe the line, enforce the standards and provide good, consistent leadership to their unit and not fall into the trap that says the rules don't apply to them for whatever reason.

Example:

On my return from Active Duty in 1989, I was asked to help out with a unit that was standing up in Highland Park, Michigan. (Highland Park is a city that is surrounded on all sides by the City of Detroit. Those of you who have seen the movie Gran Torino, it was filmed in Highland Park.   In my life, Highland Park has been synonymous with "a really crappy place where you don't want to be."  I worked for UPS and my delivery area was in Highland Park, and working the jumpseat during the Christmas season allowed me to see just how *bad* it really was there.   When I lived in Detroit in the mid-1990s, my wife worked in a nursing home in Highland Park. Not pretty. I was actually glad to live 6-8 blocks _outside_ of Highland Park in the big-bad City of Detroit<GRIN>)  This unit was an AFJROTC unit that had decided that they wanted to be a CAP unit en masse. 

There were four of us long-time CAP CP-types from other units who went to help out this unit on a weekly basis to get up to speed, understand CAP, etc.  The cadets were more than willing (there were 80+ cadets) to embrace the standards and really do what they needed to do.  It was the adult officers who refused to learn about CAP, adhere to the regulations, and actually exercise any leadership.   One of their "officers" (I use that term loosely) was an ANG TSgt who made me think that the ANG had really, really let their promotion standards slip.  I wouldn't have put this gentleman in charge of the latrine, let alone a component of a cadet unit. 

My good friend, the late Kevin Adams, would brook no argument from these people when they proffered the "Well, we're a black Civil Air Patrol unit, so we should be allowed to do things our own way.." (Kevin was black, from the City of Detroit, and a former Spaatz Cadet.  He knew the standards, knew the regs and knew that an excuse like that was a load of horse-pucky and told them so, to their faces.) It was always fun to sit and watch/listen while the unit commander and his officers started waving their hands around and saying why they though it was a good idea to promote cadets to C/FO or C/2Lt just because they needed cadet officers. Never mind the regs and things like tests, encampments, moral leadership, actually learning the material, etc.  We'd come in to a meeting and there would be 4-5 cadets standing there with pips, C/MSgt chevrons, etc. Cadets who'd all been C/Amn the week before. 

Kevin would sit and calmly explain to them how things were supposed to be, and then they'd go off and do their own thing again.  The wing really, really wanted an "inner-city" unit and didn't want to do much to hold people accountable for their actions, lest the unit bolt, so it was allowed to continue doing things on the fringe until it basically imploded from its lack of leadership and inability to be a part of the rest of CAP.  IMHO, this contributed to 90%+ of the problem.

There have been at least two other CAP units in Detroit that I knew of over the years, and at least one of them failed again due to some of the same issues as the Highland Park unit.  Even when the wing attempted to exercise a little control over the unit, they refused to do thing the CAP way, held themselves out as operating under different standards because of their location, etc.  (We had a cadet come to encampment in 2005 when I was the commandant of cadets from one of the Detroit units, and this young man had so much hair that when he was standing in the inprocessing line, from behind he looked like a girl.  When asked, he was told that his unit said he didn't have to cut his hair if he didn't want to... Oh boy, was _that_ a fun conversation..)

Some of it was socio-economic, some was political, some of it was just crazy leadership. 

Like I said, I think an "urban" or inner-city unit can work over the longer term, but it requires a number of stars to line up correctly and appropriately:   Community support and involvement, enlightened unit leadership who understand, accept and embrace CAP standards, and a higher-HQ chain of command that understand the challenges and help provide appropriate levels of support, guidance, leadership and latitude.
Darin Ninness, Col, CAP
Wing Dude, National Bubba
I like to have Difficult Adult Conversations™
The contents of this post are Copyright © 2007-2024 by NIN. All rights are reserved. Specific permission is given to quote this post here on CAP-Talk only.

FW

There are currently 4 squadrons in the city of Philadelphia.  All represent the neighborhoods they represent.  All have been in existence for "generations" and have their share of successes and failures.  What keeps them going is strong leadership and purpose in giving cadets more than drill and ceramony.  It also means, most likely, further development of our school programs.

I agree with Darin however, diversity is more than devoping more inner city units. It's developing a program where all are interested in particpating.  And, IMHO, it also requires a diversity of thought in how this should come together.

RiverAux

My home squadron is in a large metropolitan area, but historically almost all the cadets came from the suburban areas.  I don't know how much they tried to recruit from within the city before I arrived, but I made some good attempts that failed miserably.  I did presentations at 4-5 schools and while there seemed to be a lot of positive response at these events there was almost no follow up.  I do suspect cost and time were the major factors. 

The one cadet I did get out of those efforts performed exceedingly well and getting him into the system was one of the best things I did in CAP. 

In the meantime, the unit did do pretty well (at least for a time) recruiting within the city thanks to a senior member that had a lot of connections within the community. 


NIN

Quote from: RiverAux on May 12, 2011, 03:20:29 PM
The one cadet I did get out of those efforts performed exceedingly well and getting him into the system was one of the best things I did in CAP. 

In the meantime, the unit did do pretty well (at least for a time) recruiting within the city thanks to a senior member that had a lot of connections within the community.

See, now, those are the ones that make it worthwhile.

One of the things I've always tried to do with recruiting (or any part of the program, for that matter) is to build structure and process that do not specifically rely on a person's connections or "sole talent" to succeed.   

For example, if the unit has a high-speed, low-drag ground team, and the GTL has spent his own $$ to get an Elper or some piece of gear that's critical to the success of the mission, I'll find a way to fundraise and have the unit obtain its own item so we're not as reliant on that _one_ individual. People come and go, things change, but if you have a capability, it should be based on the unit's ability to execute the task or capability, not on one person's ability to bring that to the table.

My old unit, even though I'm two years out of CAP now and over 2 years out of command, is still going gangbusters in terms of membership & recruiting. Why? Because I built up the recruiting program and inculcated it in the unit's fabric, instead of "that recruiting thing that Lt Col Ninness does."  Why? Because eventually, Lt Col Ninness ain't gonna be around for whatever reason, and the unit still needs to execute.

So the forms are in the file cabinet and on the laptop. The inprocessing database is on the the laptop.  The flyers are done in Microsoft Word so any Joe with Microsoft Office on the unit laptop can modify them as needed, not just me, the guy who created it.

When you have a guy who has tremendous community connections, you use that as a toe-hold to then help expand the _unit's_ community connections.  If the guy has a close personal relationship with, say, the mayor, then the unit commander should have that guy invite the mayor and everybody on the city council to the unit open house, so the unit now has a connection with the mayor.  (I'm not suggesting that you take anything away from your member with the connections, but in good networking, he represents a single-point-of-failure.  If he leaves or gets bumped to Group/Wing/Region, can the unit still get the mayor to come to an open house?

Darin Ninness, Col, CAP
Wing Dude, National Bubba
I like to have Difficult Adult Conversations™
The contents of this post are Copyright © 2007-2024 by NIN. All rights are reserved. Specific permission is given to quote this post here on CAP-Talk only.

Dad2-4

Darin hit it right on the head. Quality, high speed leadership, parental support, quality program.
The Houston area has a HUGE cadet squadron that thrives because of the above mentioned items. And there's another school-based Flight in SW Houston that may be small but has quality leadership by a man that took the time to learn how to do it the right way and insists that his cadets do it too.