The Program Job WHAT THE JOB HAS ALWAYS BEEN THE PROGRAM JOB has always been concerned with maintaining program standards and policies, enriching the program for the troop leaders of the community, relating the program to local conditions, making program consultants available to leaders, maintaining a year-around program on three-age levels, and setting up program centers for special city-wide activities. These persons are usually members of a program committee. Qualifications. A program person should be one who is interested primarily in recreational activities and has, preferably, a background in the educational field and an appreciation of how the Girl Scout program is designed to enrich the child, widen her horizons, make her self-reliant, resourceful, and “prepared.” Help on the Job. As part of the local administrative set up, these persons receive special training before and after they undertake the job. Since they are usually members of a program committee, they receive much help from their chairman and fellow committee members. In the Girl Scout Handbooks they find detailed information about the program. From the Program Division at national headquarters they obtain suggestions as to methods of presenting it in troops on three age levels and under a great variety of circumstances, and publications designed for the leader’s help. WHAT MAKES THE JOB MORE IMPORTANT TODAY Trainers of youth can do their job successfully only if their tools are perfected. Local program people will find opportunities, as never before, to vitalize the program which is the leader’s tool. There is defense work to be done by civilians, and the program can be adapted to get that work don; there is morale to be maintained, and the program can be used to maintain and raise that morale; there is a war emergency to be dealt with, and the program can be perfected to help deal with that emergency; there is a democracy to be preserved in the face of many onslaughts, and the program can demonstrate democracy in all that Girl Scouts do so that they will find it satisfying and workable. 14 NEW OPPORTUNITIES THE JOB OFFERS FOR DEFENSE SERVICE The program job offers many opportunities for defense service. These include: 1. Opportunities to build morale: a. By informing leaders through various media of the significance of their jobs today. b. By showing those in the community who have special interests and talents how they can contribute to the defense program today through acting as program consultants in troops. c. By planning city-wide activities that will tend to vitalize the program of all leaders. 2. Opportunities to meet demands of the military and industrial victory program: a. By demonstrating through community-wide activities the way sin which Girl Scouts can be of help in the victory program of the community. b. By informing the Civilian Defense Volunteer Offices of the use the Girl Scout organization can make of persons interested in and skilled in special activities as program consultants. (See pages 33 and 35). c. By informing leaders of troops of the opportunities there are for defense service in the community appropriate to the age and abilities of the girls. d. By informing the Red Cross, the Bundles for Britain, the U.S. O., of ways in which the Girl Scouts at various age levels can be of help to them in defense activities. e. By setting up Girl Scout Service Bureaus and Senior Service Scout units so that girls may be assisted in their attempts to do community service along lines that are appropriate to their age and abilities. f. By re-analyzing the community from the standpoint of program resources in order to conserve those necessary for the defense program and substitute others for them. g. By re-analyzing the program needs of leaders today in order to help them make their troop programs significant from the standpoint of serving in defense activities. 3. Opportunities to prepare for war emergencies: a. By making program consultants available who can teach emergency skills, methods, and attitudes to leaders and girls. b. By informing leaders of local program resources through which they can obtain information, demonstration, materials, and so forth that will enable them to prepare their girls for war emergencies. THE PART THE COMMUNITY CAN PLAY One of the best ways to enrich the program for Girl Scouts is to relate it in some way to their lives as they find it in the community. The community can help the program group, therefore, by helping troops to tie their activities to things they know will give meaning to the program locally. Such agencies as the Civilian Defense Volunteer Offices can also bring to the atten- 15