Inclusivity

Beginning with the first Scouts camp on Brownsea Island in 1907, our movement’s brought together young people from different backgrounds to share fun and adventurous experiences.

Over the years, we’ve made great changes to become more inclusive. We’ve welcomed girls to each section, and made sure our LGBTQ+ young people and volunteers can be themselves, and are celebrated for who they are.

We know there’s still more to do. We won’t stop until every young person in the UK sees a place for themselves in Scouts, and has the opportunity to join and thrive in our movement.

Our Inclusivity goals

By 2025:

• We’ll have opened 500 more sections in areas of deprivation, reaching young people who could benefit the most
• The number of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic adult volunteers will reflect wider society with a minimum target of 5%

Progress on inclusivity

Creating and Protecting Scouting in lower income neighbourhoods

Our Regional Services Team has worked hard, alongside volunteers, to protect local Scouting impacted by the pandemic. They’ve created new provision, where possible, all in lower income neighbourhoods. Thanks to the Pears Foundation, Department for Culture, Media and Sport and individual donors, we raised and distributed £641,000 to local Scout Groups through our Recovery Fund. We also supported Groups to access £1.76m from the first phase of the Government’s Youth Investment Fund, and hundreds of thousands from Amazon.

All of this has meant that we’ve created an additional net 222 sections in the bottom 30% of the Index of Multiple Deprivation since 2018, with 278 left to achieve our target of 500 by 2025.

Squirrels

In September 2021, we launched Squirrels, our new section for 4- and 5- year-olds. At this age, non-formal education can make a real difference, so we’re committed to providing Squirrels for young people who wouldn’t usually access Scouts.

Progress has been fantastic so far. In the first six months, our amazing volunteers opened 140 Squirrel Dreys in areas of deprivation, and this number is still climbing.

We’ve started Squirrel Dreys in some of our most ethnically diverse Scout groups, with 34% of them having 10% or more young people from Black, Asian and minority backgrounds.

Race Equity

We’re aware that people from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds are underrepresented in Scouts, so we’ve been working hard to understand what’s causing this, and what needs to change.

In 2020, we commissioned an external review into race equity at Scouts. The review looked at the experiences of staff and volunteers from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds. It was completed in 2021, and the review has provided us with a detailed set of learnings to work from.

To keep the momentum up, and make sure we deliver on our promises, we’ve set up a Race Equity project. To oversee its work, we’ve created a project board, sponsored by Yousif Eltom, our volunteer UK Race Equity Advisor.

We asked the movement about our vision for the project, and what our priorities should be, and we had a fantastic 1,300 responses. We’re now using these responses to set our strategy for embedding race equity across our movement.

Celebrating difference within Scouts

In October 2021, we marked Black History Month. We shared information for everybody to learn about Black history, and provided wider opportunities to learn and talk about race. As part of this, we shared stories of Black Explorers in history on social media. We also provided links on our websites for leaders, so they could run activities with their sections and celebrate Black History Month.

Some of our amazing young people hosted two exciting webinars with inspiring role models.

Emma Aggrey, an Explorer Scout, spoke to Rhiane Fatinikun (founder of Black Girl Hike), Hayley Bennett (co-founder of Community Nutmegs supporting women and non-binary people of colour), and Saray Khumalo (mountaineer and Scout Ambassador). They talked about the importance of seeing Black women in the outdoors, and the role organisations like ours play in getting young people outdoors to have new experiences.

Anes Ali, a Young Leader, had great Zoom chemistry with Dwayne Fields, explorer and Scouts Ambassador. They talked about the impact Scouts has on their lives. Dwayne described Scouts as ‘a safety net where young people can try things, be themselves, be confident, be daring, and become the person they should be.’

More inclusive recruitment

Thanks to the Pears Foundation and Aziz Foundation, we’ve continued developing our strategy to attract more young Muslims to Scouts. We’re learning from, and building on, the incredible success of the Muslim Scout Fellowship.

We’re also thanking the Pears Foundation for our volunteer-focused partnership with Girlguiding. This partnership is for creating a digital platform to welcome potential volunteers from diverse backgrounds. We hope this platform will make our volunteer recruitment and learning more inclusive.

What’s next

Our Race Equity project will continue at full throttle. We’ll soon be publishing our plans for the project, along with regular progress updates.

We’ll bring together all the fantastic inclusivity work that’s happening across the movement, under the umbrella of a new Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Programme of Work. This’ll make sure we’re thinking strategically, and maximising our opportunities to make Scouts even more inclusive.

Finally, we’ll carry on working towards attracting more young Muslims into Scouts and overhauling our volunteer journey. This includes developing bespoke learning for all our amazing volunteers, so everyone knows how they can contribute and help make Scouts as inclusive as possible.