Hi, does anyone know about the changes to staff cadet post 2017.
At 18 you will have to chose between being on a Sqn and working to uniformed staff or go to a VGS or AEF as a staff cadet.
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Uhhh sorry what? Where has this come from?
who what where???
Come on!! 2016 is meant to be a bad year now 2017 is looking like a messed up disaster with all these changes and little information
Are the changes outlined in detail anywhere?
Given that I’ve not heard of any, they will be sat somewhere on someone’s desk or in tray.
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Wasn’t it something to do with the fact that they’ll now be able to take responsibility for cadets on events without staff - but ensuring they are able and suitable? I’m sure I’ve heard this mentioned before.
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There’s five options being looked at.
Full supervisory responsibility inc overnight
Supervisory responsibility not including overnight
Supervisory role but staff also needed
Something else
No responsibility at all
Can someone, for the love of God, please post sources or briefing documents.
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Do they not already have supervisory responsibility for activities where they are suitably qualified i.e. they can be the adult in charge of an AT event where they are the qualified person so it they hold a MIAS or CWA?
Yes - I imagine that’s a status quo option.
You can post a verbal discussion. What do you want, something or nothing?
Why not just stop cadet service at 18 and make them CIs? Then they can have full supervisory responsibilities as proper adults (not the adult cadet fiddle) in the Corps and no caveats.
This is a half way house and open to interpretation.
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I agree that would make life much simpler from a staff point of view but it does have some issues.
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Retention, the ones who go to Uni will just vanish. At the moment we get them back during the holidays, they stay interested and becoming a CI with the same part time hours is a natural step.
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Maturity, a lot of 18 year olds aren’t mature enough to be staff but we keep them on as Staff cadets and help them to develop, make them full blown members of staff and if we were honest OC’s we would end up cutting them loose.
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The cadets themselves are opposed, they have made that clear at things like the Cadet Conference at Cranwell.
No cadet can supervise another even if they hold NGB qualifications. This is from HQAC Adv Trg conference a few months ago. And is utter tosh… flies in the face of development and all that.
What I want is for clear and concise information from the people considering implementing the change. You know, like them that make up policy. I don’t want to sound like GHE2/Teflon but sometimes I despair at the organisation.
They managed to send out a (crappy) briefing document about the change to VR commissions. Given the history of cock-ups with changing the requirements/status of valuable over-18 service, you’d think that there would have been some learning that took place…
Uhhh yes they can. I forget where I read it but I’m sure it’s policy that you might need a CFAV to look after the group as a whole, but if they’re qualified they can do it.
That’s certainly what they are being told down at Windermere/Llanbedr when they go on courses.
Maturity? Are these the same who are deemed mature enough to start work, vote in elections, get married (and all that entails), rent accommodation, live independently? The fact we don’t regard them as mature enough is because we don’t regard them as mature enough, not because they aren’t. TBH I know plenty of uniformed staff who are childish and immature, but people lap them up.
If they go to uni, their involvement can be better managed and as CIs they could attend local sqns without upsetting sqn cadet NCO egos. As said they would be adults in the Corps and not adults masquerading as cadets.
Why does it matter that the cadets don’t like it? There are plenty of things people don’t like or want, but it doesn’t stop people doing it to us. If they leave so be it.
Maybe Corps values the cadets more than it values us?
Just because they are old enough to vote doesn’t mean they can be trusted to look after themselves let alone other people. There is a difference between age and maturity, if someone wants to be staff and they appear to be immature I wouldn’t support them irrespective they could be 40, some 18 year o,daughter are, some are not.
They won’t become CI’s if they are off to Uni as by stopping at 18 we would be stopping them at a natural time to walk away all together (they would say I’ll be back at 21) and as has been discussed in other threads it is often habit that keeps people involved, they would go to Uni and we would probably never see them again. That’s one of the issues we have by not keeping our CWO’s until 22 anymore, we used to keep a huge percentage of our CWO’s as they were all back from Uni for a year before they timed out now they time out at Uni and we keep a lot less.
I’m not saying any of these are ideal, but we shouldn’t just assume that by ending Cadet service at 18 which solves some problems it won’t create more bigger ones.