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Volunteering at Scouts is changing to help us reach more young people

Volunteering is changing to help us reach more young people

Volunteering is changing at Scouts. Read more

Discover what this means

YouShape Award

At Scouts, young people learn how to speak up and take the lead. That’s what the new YouShape Award is all about.

The YouShape Award makes it even easier to embed being youth shaped into your programme. At the same time, it’ll help young people work with their leaders to learn leadership skills that they’ll use for the rest of their lives.

The journey so far

By 2025, our goal is that 250,000 young people will have the opportunity to shape their experience at Scouts every year. This award helps us get there. It makes it even easier to embed chances for young people to speak up and take the lead right into our programmes.

If you’re a Youth Commissioner, check out our page on information for Youth Commissioners for some hints and tips for supporting other volunteers in delivering the award. 

To watch in full screen, double click the video

 

Meet the badges

Your questions answered

We’re launching the award for Beavers, Cubs, Scouts, and Explorers.

The programme for Scout Network is planned and delivered in a different way, so we’re not introducing a YouShape Award for this section.

We won’t be launching a YouShape award for Squirrel Scouts at this stage. Don’t worry – the Squirrels programme includes plenty of opportunities for 4 and 5 year olds to get their first taste of leadership.

The badges can be awarded by leaders, just like with other badges and awards in the programme. You may want to invite your local Youth Commissioner along to award the first few badges!

You can buy the badges from Scout Store now. You’ll be able to buy each segment separately, so young people can wear each segment they earn with pride.

Young Leaders can work towards their YouShape award by participating in the programme and working towards the criteria at Explorers.

If young people have already achieved some of the requirements before the award launches, then it’s totally fine to count those parts as completed.

You’ll see that some of the criteria in the YouShape Award will also count towards other badges and awards too. You can count the things young people do towards more than one badge and award at the same time.

The YouShape Award is just for young people who are participating in the Scouts programme as part of Beavers, Cubs, Scouts, or Explorers.

Share #YouShape on social media

We want to see your progress on social media. Tag us, tweet us, and share your pictures using the hashtag #YouShape. Find us on:

Facebook

Twitter

Instagram

Find resources to help get the word out online in the Scout brand centre.