Organizing a Pathfinder TLT program: a practical starting checklist
A practical sequence for standing up or resetting a Teen Leadership Training program in a Pathfinder club — people first, then structure, then records.
Updated
Enthusiasm is important, but a durable TLT program also needs clear responsibility, named mentors and reliable records. This checklist puts those pieces in an order that can hold up across a full club year.
1. Name one person who owns the program
A TLT director — one adult whose job is the teen leadership program specifically, not the club generally. Without a single owner, sign-offs get postponed and records fragment across whoever happened to be present.
2. Confirm requirements with an authoritative source
Before you build any checklist, get the current official requirements from your conference youth department and the current official Pathfinder and TLT materials. Use the NAD TLT Director's Guide and the NAD TLT program overview as the program foundation, then confirm any additional registration procedures, schedules or local expectations with your own conference — see, for example, the Texas Conference Pathfinder TLT page.
TLT Tracker does not define official requirements. Always verify against current official materials and your conference.
3. Pair every teen with a named adult
Mentorship is the part teens remember, and it is also the part that quietly disappears when it is left informal. Write the pairings down. Tell both the teen and the adult who they are matched with, and what the adult is expected to do — observe, coach, and confirm completed work.
Adult-teen mentoring is part of the official TLT program structure, not an optional administrative extra (see the NAD TLT Director's Guide).
4. Decide how work gets verified before you need it
Teens do leadership work at camporees, at school, in other ministries, and on Sabbath afternoons when no club leader is watching. Agree in advance on who may verify that work and what evidence you expect, so you are not renegotiating the standard for each teen.
5. Set up records once, in one place
Whatever system you use, decide these before the first meeting:
- Where progress lives, and who is allowed to change it
- How attendance gets captured during the meeting rather than afterwards
- How honors and service hours are recorded, with who verified them
- How you will produce a summary at the end of the year without a weekend of transcription
6. Review out loud, on a schedule
Put a progress review on the calendar — monthly is enough. Teens respond to visible progress, and a monthly review catches the teen who quietly stopped attending in November while there is still time to reach them.
How TLT Tracker fits
Steps 3 through 6 are what this software is for: mentor assignments, per-track progress, phone-based attendance, outside verification by email link, and exportable reports. Steps 1 and 2 are human decisions no app can make for you.