NYLT is an exciting, action-packed, week-long program designed to provide youth a positive learning environment where development of leadership skills is at the core. The skills learned are immediately put into practice through a variety of games and activities in a fun environment. The program is designed for youth age 13+. Youth should have achieved the rank of First Class by the camp date and should have completed at least one week-long summer camp.

Leadership
A major objective of NYLT is to give participants a working knowledge of advanced leadership skills and help them relate these skills to their home and troop responsibilities. Scouts also have a wide range of opportunities to share ideas and experiences with those from other troops. Leadership requires vision, goals, planning, and teamwork. These are taught throughout the week in various settings including presentations, games and hands-on experience. The skills learned during the course also help prepare Scouts for family responsibilities and a lifetime of leadership roles.

Modeling a Home Troop as a Timberline Troop
An NYLT course is set up to represent a month in the life of an ideal Scouts, BSA Troop. Like the Troop, NYLT participants are assigned to a patrol of usually 4-6 youth. The course emulates the first 3 weeks of the month, complete with Patrol Leader's Council meetings, Troop meetings, Patrol meetings, and planning for a big Troop event (the 4th week). Incorporated throughout the course are a wide variety of games and activities that build individual skills and confidence, and also builds a patrol into a strong team. Scouting is a youth-led program, and this helps put the "youth" more strongly in charge.

The course is directed by a staff of youth leaders and instructors who work closely with their adult advisers. Scouts and their patrols get an opportunity to practice and experience leadership skills first-hand.

Scouts who have completed the National Youth Leader Training course return to their troops with a toolbox of leadership skills that enables them to better understand their role as someone who can and should shape the direction of his troop.

"Each Scout returns home knowing not only how the troop functions, but why," said John Walker, a Scoutmaster at the Houston pilot course. "He is better equipped to communicate with boys and adults, to plan, to help the troop function as a high-performance unit."