Assessors' Guide
Interim process for when Compass goes offline
This process will be impacted by Compass going offline for everyone from Thursday 7 November. For details on how this process is impacted and what you'll need to do instead, please take a look at our interim processes.
Find out more about the interim processes(FS120804) Published October 2024, replacing Jan 2025.
Introduction
This page provides a guide to those wishing to become Nights Away Assessors. It should be read in conjunction with Policy, Organisation and Rules (POR) of The Scout Association. Find out more information about the scheme for applicants and for Lead Volunteers and Approvers.
Before supporting the Nights Away process locally, please check with your Lead Volunteer to confirm the correct procedure that you should follow.
Districts have until Spring 2025 to transition to the Nights Away process within the new digital membership system. As a result, your County/District may implement this process right away or choose to wait until closer to the transition date in Spring 2025, during which time you can still use the existing systems (downloadable nights away notification application or local digital solution).
For more information about the changes, please visit the Volunteer Experience and Digital Transformation webpages.
All County/Districts will transition to the Nights Away process within the new digital membership system. After this transition, download nights away notification application/, or local digital will no longer be accepted.
The Nights Away Permit Scheme
The Nights Away Permit Scheme promotes quality residential and camping experiences. It allows volunteers who have demonstrated their skill and knowledge to take young people away on nights away events. It also supports and encourages volunteers to acquire and improve the skills required to provide residential experiences.
The role of the Nights Away Assessor
There are two key functions of the Nights Away Assessor, which are promoting nights away events and assessing applicants for Nights Away Permits.
Nights away events are a key part in providing an adventurous programme for young people, so it is important to ensure we are delivering this. The Nights Away Assessor has a key role in working with volunteers, Lead Volunteers and campsites and activity centres to ensure that nights away events are taking place and every young person is getting the opportunity to experience such an event. The exact methods of promoting nights away events will vary from District to District depending on local circumstances.
The Nights Away Assessor has a key role in ensuring the quality of nights away events by assessing applicants’ technical abilities before they are granted a Nights Away Permit. This is done by assessing the eight core skill areas covered in the Assessment Checklist for a Nights Away Permit and passing a recommendation on to the applicant’s Lead Volunteer or Nights Away Approver. Find out more about the assessment process.
How To Become A Nights Away Assessor
Nights Away Assessor accreditations are added by Districts and Counties through the membership system to members who have an existing appointment. To be considered as a Nights Away Assessor, you need to fulfil the following criteria:
Technical Knowledge
To ensure that they all have the technical knowledge required to carry out the role, all Nights Away Assessor are required to hold a Nights Away Permit.
The level of Nights Away Permit that the Nights Away Assessor holds also determines the level of permit they can assess for, so a Nights Away Assessor holding; an indoor permit can only assess for indoor permits, a campsite permit can assess for campsite and indoor permits, a greenfield permit can assess for any permits, a lightweight expedition permit can only assess for lightweight expedition permits.
Assessment Skills
As well as having the required technical knowledge, Nights Away Assessors also require the skills to be able to assess. This learning and validation is provided through Nights Away Assessors version of Module 25 Assessing Learning.
Due to the modular format of learning, this will involve no unnecessary additional learning, for those who already have these skills, as validation of can be done through carrying out an assessment with the support locally from your learning assessors from the volunteer development team, who will most likely have someone that is an experienced Nights Away Assessor.
Remain Up To Date
It's important that Nights Away Assessors remain up to date and active within their role. To ensure that they are, all Nights Away Assessors are required to have been on at least a day (7 hours) of Nights Away Assessors workshops or forums within the last five years.
This figure should be seen as the minimum rather than the target. These workshops could be run by Districts, Counties, Regions, Nationally or a combination of the above.
25: Assessing Learning
Download Nights Away Assessor Workbook