C.O.P.E.  - Challenging Outdoor Personal Encounter

Project COPE is an acronym for Challenging Outdoor Personal Encounter. It comprises a series of outdoor challenges, beginning with basic group initiative games and progressing to more complicated low-course and high-course activities. Some of these events involve a group effort, whereas others test individual skills and agility. Participants climb, swing, balance, jump, and rappel as well as think through solutions to a variety of challenges. Most participants find that they can do much more than they initially thought they could.

Project COPE is an exciting outdoor activity that can attract and keep older boys in Scouting. It is designed to meet the needs of today's youth who are seeking greater challenges to their physical and mental abilities. The underlying goals of a Project COPE course are consistent with the methods of Scouting. Group activities are ideal for emphasizing the patrol method and developing leadership. Individual activities help promote personal growth.

A Project COPE course provides an opportunity for each participant to achieve success as an individual and as a member of a patrol or team. The activities are not designed to be competitive or to be races against time. The objectives include building teams; solving problems; making decisions; and developing trust, communication, leadership, and self-esteem as team members cooperate to achieve goals upon which they have agreed. The course is designed to foster personal growth in a shorter length of time than anything most people have experienced.

Seven Major Objectives of Project COPE

  1. Leadership development

  2. Problem solving

  3. Communication

  4. Self-esteem

  5. Trust

  6. Decision making

  7. Teamwork

Safety

National promotion of Project COPE enables the Boy Scouts of America to establish standards designed to meet Scouting's needs and concerns for safety within a strong network. Each COPE facility is inspected at least twice annually once by a regional inspection team and once by a council inspection team. The safety of Scouts, leaders, and staff is imperative. Mere concern about safety is not sufficient. This concern must be demonstrated by a director and staff members who are knowledgeable and personally skilled in the respective course activities, who are effective teachers, and who are constantly alert to safety procedures and participant needs. Prospective staff members must be carefully screened. A qualified staff must be assembled with enough members to ensure that continuation of the program does not depend on one or two people. Standards for Project COPE are stringent so that the experience will be both safe and successful.

Certification

Project COPE directors are certified through weeklong training at a National Camping School or at Philmont Scout Ranch during the annual Boy Scouting conferences. A currently certified Project COPE director must be on site whenever the COPE course is being operated. Each COPE course must be inspected annually using the national standards for Project COPE