1. Supporting County Assessors

Appointment

When County Assessors are appointed they need to go through the appointment process, as with any other adult appointed within Scouting. As MAPS it will be you that recommends all potential County Assessors to your County Appointments Advisory Committee for approval.

The appointment of County Assessors starts with identifying people with the potential to hold these roles. They will need to be people who are active within the activity, often outside as well as inside Scouting. It may be they are people who have been members of County activity teams for a while and you have supported them through the process of gaining skills and experience so that they can gain the qualifications required, or it may be that you can identify practitioners currently outside Scouting who are happy to come in and use their skills for this specific role.

You will need to check that they have the required qualification and that it is current before you nominate them for appointment as an Assessor. For some activities these qualifications expire over time if not renewed and some NGBs require ongoing membership to keep the qualification valid. You will also need to ensure they understand and have the correct qualities for the role. Being expert technically at an activity does not automatically make someone a good Assessor.

There are funding opportunities to help members gain the qualification required to be a County Assessor.

Once a potential Assessor has been identified, had the role and requirements explained to them and agreed to take on the role you will need to work through the appointment process with them. By entering the members details on Compass or completing the Adult Information form you will provide your nomination to the County Appointments Advisory Committee for them to be appointed as an Assessor. The key parts you need to
ensure are:

• The role title is correct. This will be County Assessor - [ACTIVITY] and needs to include any categories (summer, B1-B2, open water etc.) The Appointments
  Secretary will use this information when recording the appointment on Compass.
• That full membership is ticked. 
• That it is for County (or Regional in Scotland) level.
• That there is a review date no more than 5 years after the start date (although this can be shorter if required).

The forms (if used) need to be sent to the County Appointments Secretary, who will record details of this role on Compass and forward to the County Appointments Advisory Committee for approval. The role will show as Provisional until details of the disclosure check are added at which point it will become Full.

Although the induction process covers all elements of the appointment (everything you have done for the Assessor so far is part of this), once they are appointed it is important they have a formal induction so that they are fully aware of everything to do with their role. This should cover areas such as; what their role includes, what support is available, useful contacts, how the County deals with assessments etc. It's critically important that this induction takes place for all new Assessors so that they are not just left in their new role not knowing what is happening.

Induction is an ongoing process that may last several months. Along with an induction, as an adult member in a new role it is important that all Assessors are assigned a Training Adviser. The Training Adviser will be able to support the Assessor through Module 1 and Module 25 for Activity Assessors, which is the required training for Assessors, and also put together a Personal Learning Plan for any other training needs identified based on the individual involved.

Carry out the role of an Assessor

Once appointed to the role, Assessors will need support in carrying out their role. The main areas for this are likely to be:

• The organisation of assessment courses. It's recognised that assessments with multiple Assessors and applicants are better than one on one assessments in most cases. Arranging assessment courses allows you to get the most Assessors and applicants involved at one time so that ideas can be shared, different opinions
  sought etc. It can also allow you to keep costs down, work with Assessors from other Counties and promote your courses to potential applicants from other Counties. Having course dates organised also allows your Assessors to plan what time they are able to give to Scouting, and allows applicants to find courses at times that are good for them.

As MAPS you are in a position to work with your Assessors, and any others who will be involved, to put together a diary of assessment courses across the activities. You are also in a position to liaise with MAPS from other Counties to make the best use of Assessors on a Regional basis by having Assessors working with those from other Counties, co-ordinating diaries to avoid conflicts, making sure there are opportunities for leaders right across the Region etc.

• Facilitate opportunities for your assessors to work with each other. This will include; working with and shadowing other assessors, working with assessors from other Counties, and running assessor meetings so that assessors can discuss previous assessments that they have carried out.

Shadowing other assessors and working with assessors from other Counties are most easily covered through assessment courses run across Counties, but you will also need to help facilitate this for your other assessors, particularly for activities where there are few assessors and few permit applications, so less opportunities to run assessment courses. This could be through putting them in contact with other assessors of similar activities or letting them know when there are assessment courses running for other activities that they could attend.

Assessor meetings are important to provide peer support for your assessors and also to allow any assessment that was seen by only one assessor to be discussed. This is important to help provide a level standard of assessing across all assessors, and where this is combined with other Counties, a level standard of assessing across Counties. Assessors should talk openly about their assessments and decisions made in a safe environment.

• Ensure your Assessors have opportunities for Continued Personal Development (CPD). It is vital that all Assessors stay up to date within their activity and also with the skills they will need for assessing. You should be able to help provide the opportunities for this, possibly including; finding NGB updates or workshops for them to attend, bringing in technical advisers to run workshops and update sessions, or running County or Regional Assessor workshops.

If running your own workshops then the UKHQ can provide support to you in putting this together and running it.

• The minimum CPD requirement for all Assessors is two days (14 hours) within the five years of their appointment and should include at least one day internally within Scouting and at least one day of external/technical updates.

This should however be seen as a minimum rather than a target.

• Providing ongoing support to your Assessors through informal ongoing reviews. These are particularly important for Assessors as their role is likely to be more sporadic in its time commitment than other roles that have ongoing contact with the same members of Scouting. There is no set format for informal reviews as this will differ depending on the circumstances and individuals involved, but the important areas are; the Assessor feels involved and needed, they are a source of support, they are informal and regular, they are appropriate to the situation, and they are treated as important.

Review appointment

As with all other adult roles in Scouting, Assessors roles need to be reviewed at the end of the appointment period (generally five years). This will help decide whether the Assessor appointment should be renewed or cancelled, or whether the Assessor wishes to change role.

If the outcome of the review is that the Assessor appointment is going to be renewed then there are a number of checks that you will need to make before this can happen:

• They have had a disclosure check within the last five years or they need to complete another one now.
• The qualification required for their role remains valid. For some activities these qualifications expire over time if not renewed and some NGBs require ongoing membership to keep the qualification valid.
• They have validated module 25 for Activity Assessors.
• They have a minimum of two days (14 hours) of Continued Personal Development within the last five years.

This should be a minimum rather than a target, and should include at least one day of internal Scouting and at least one day of external / technical ongoing learning. Internal workshops are likely to be run by Scout Counties or Regions, while external ongoing learning could be update workshops run by NGBs, days out with Technical Advisers looking at up-to-date techniques and practises, or training days for further qualifications. Funding is available to help with CPD and getting a technical adviser to support.

As well as these specific checks of the Assessor if they are going to renew the role it is important that the Assessor has a continued understanding of their role and what is expected of them. This should give the opportunity for both the Assessor and yourself to identify any training opportunities or needs they may have. And lastly it is very important that the Assessor remains enthused about the role, has the time and energy to carry it out, and critically, is happy to continue.

Once you have met with the Assessor and carried out the review you will need to fill in Form AR and forward this to the County Appointment Secretary, whether the recommendation is for renewal, reassignment or cancelling the appointment.