Program explainer
What is Teen Leadership Training (TLT)?
Teen Leadership Training, usually shortened to TLT, is a Pathfinder program in which teenagers serve in leadership roles inside their club while working through leadership requirements alongside adult mentors and club staff.
A short definition
TLT stands for Teen Leadership Training. It is a Pathfinder club program for teens who have moved beyond the regular Pathfinder classes and are learning to lead: helping run units, teaching younger Pathfinders, assisting with honors and activities, and taking on real responsibility under supervision.
The North American Division TLT Director's Guide describes TLT as a four-year leadership-development program for eligible Pathfinders in grades 9–12. Training is organized around six operational departments—Administrative, Outreach, Teaching, Activities, Records and Counseling—and takes place under adult supervision with an assigned mentor.
Source: North American Division TLT Director's Guide, pp. 6–7
Participants are commonly called TLTs. Each TLT is typically paired with an adult mentor or counselor who supervises their service, signs off completed requirements, and gives feedback. A TLT director or club leadership team oversees the program as a whole.
See the NAD TLT Director's Guide and official TLT training resources.
TLT the program vs. TLT Tracker the software
These are two different things, and it matters for anyone searching for information.
- Teen Leadership Training (TLT) is the Pathfinder leadership program itself. It is defined by official Pathfinder materials and administered through clubs and conferences.
- TLT Tracker is independent software that helps a club organize and administer its participation in that program — rosters, progress, attendance, honors, sign-offs, reporting and communication.
TLT Tracker did not create Teen Leadership Training and does not define its requirements. TLT Tracker is an independent management tool and is not an official website or product of the Seventh-day Adventist Church or North American Division.
Where official requirements come from
Requirements, age ranges, certification steps and policies for Teen Leadership Training are set by official Pathfinder and conference materials — not by this website. Clubs should always confirm current requirements with their conference youth department and the current official TLT curriculum and director's guide before signing anything off.
The guide linked here is the NAD edition published by Club Ministries. Local conference procedures, registration processes and schedules may supplement the NAD materials.
Where TLT Tracker displays track and activity wording, it reflects the content a club's own administrators have entered or reviewed for their club.
Why clubs find the program hard to administer
The program itself is straightforward; keeping records of it is not. A club with a handful of TLTs may be tracking several parallel tracks, dozens of individual requirements per teen, weekly attendance and uniform checks, honors earned, community service hours and sign-offs from adults who were not in the room when the paperwork happened.
Paper checklists get lost between meetings, spreadsheets end up on one leader's laptop, and mentors often have no visibility into the teens they supervise.
How TLT Tracker helps with the administrative side
TLT Tracker gives a club one shared place for that recordkeeping. Directors and authorized staff check off requirements per track, take attendance during meetings, log honors and service hours, post assignments and announcements, and pull reports. Mentors see the TLTs assigned to them. Teens see their own progress and can request that an outside overseer verify a task by email.