Survey #2 Results: What Type of Troop/IGP?
Experiences as a Leader, National Operations 2 Comments 
leader issues, multi-level troop, stress, surveys, troop stuff, volunteers
It’s time for the second GSWAC (not a council) survey results to be revealed! This survey was about getting a rough estimate of the percentage of troops that are multi-level vs. single level and also the percentage of Individual Girl Program (aka Juliettes) to see what sort of part they play since they are also a program option.
This poll was very short and straight forward and garnered a total of 826 votes. Here’s what it asked:
- What type of troop do you lead? Or IGP (Juliette)?
- If you chose multi-level, you were asked how many levels are in your troop.
- If you chose single level, you were asked what level you lead (Daisy through Ambassador).
- If you chose IGP, then you were not asked any further questions.
These votes were taken via various Facebook groups including Girl Scout Gab, Greenblood Gab, The Outdoor Journey, and various other service unit and council groups. It was also shared via email and on the Facebook pages Greenblood News and GSUSA Are you Listening? I tried to steer away from groups dedicated to a specific level as I was afraid they would skew the results.
So what’s the verdict? Drum roll, please!
Did you guess that troop types are pretty much split half and half between multi-level (47.2%) and single level (47.1%) troops? And IGP came in at 5.7%? If this is indicative of the true picture, then that tells me councils and GSUSA need to steer more resources and support toward multi-level troops. I’ve written about it before, but leading a multi-level troop is much more stressful on the primary leader, because your work doubles and triples trying to keep up with not only more girls, but adults as well. And most would say the adults are much more trouble to deal with than the girls. I’d love to know if the percentage of multi-level troops has grown in the past 10 years. I’m going to guess yes, because I’ve found there are less and less adults willing to step up and be a leader on their own (or in the first place), so more work falls on the few that are willing. And they burn out if the work load is too much, especially if they’re not given support via parents, service units, councils, and GSUSA. I’ve also wondered if there are more multi-level troops because volunteers aren’t educated about what happens when they start a brand new Daisy troop and they take kindergarten AND first graders. If you’re new to Girl Scouts and unless it’s pointed out, you probably don’t really realize until you’re down the road that at the end of the year, those first graders bridge to Brownies, and what do you do with them then? Congratulations, you’ve got yourself a multi-level troop.
So what do multi-level troops look like? How many levels are in them?
I would have loved to have broken this data down into the specific levels involved, but that would have made the survey too complicated for a Google form. Almost 43% of multi-level troops are comprised of two levels, and percentages go down from there.
What about single level troops? Of the 47.1%, here’s the percentage breakdown of the levels:
At first glance, you may be surprised that Daisies are the third lowest level. This is purely speculation, but it could be that a majority of troops that consist of Daisies are multi-level.
Well, I hope this has been interesting. While I hope these survey results may be helpful to someone out there whether it be a volunteer, council, or GSUSA staff member, I have to admit a lot of this is from my own curiosity to see if my theories are correct. You’d definitely have to do a more in-depth study to be able to draw solid conclusions from the results, but it’s a start.
If you’ve got suggestions for future polls, please let me know!
I think one of the reasons for so many multi-level troops is that GSUSA has reduced the time at each level (except Cadettes) to only two years and reduced flexibility on what level girls can be in. This basically forces any troop that isn’t all at exactly the same grade level to be multi-level for a lot of their existence. In the past, levels often covered three years and girls who were on the edge between levels could go either way. This made it easier to keep a group at one level and then bridge together.
And splitting Seniors into two levels was just silly.
There was a time my council (GSCNC) would not allow/support multi-level troops. I believe this came from the VTK – when that thing first rolled out, the leader had to pick what level they were so they could access that level’s plans, badges, etc. I believe they allow for multi-level now tho. As a SUM, I can access all levels and often help leaders find info they are looking for.
When my council tried to do away with multi-level, we saw troops being formed at one grade level. I currently have a troop of all 9th grade Seniors. While I had girls in my troops the year ahead or behind my daughter, I found myself, with my SU organizer, finding homes for those girls, so eventually my troop became all one grade. To be honest, just working with one level is hard, but multi-level with the new badge system was something I just didn’t have the time or energy to deal with. With the older GS system of badges, you could have multi-level and run progression (meaning, they’d all work on camping, the skills would just get harder/more involved for the older girls) but now, say, nature, isn’t the same across the board. Its bugs, trees, flowers, etc. The new badges more recently released are somewhat getting back to that old way of progression badges, but there are few of them (outdoor art, camping, etc).