Youth programme

Aim

To provide young people with a wide range of fun, safely adventurous, empowering, high-quality and inclusive experiences as part of our programme.

Our programme enables young people to develop essential life skills and promotes a positive impact in communities. It’s consistently and safely delivered by volunteers, who are supported by simple digital tools.

Goals

By 2026, we’ll:

• Increase support for volunteers delivering our Scouts and Explorer programmes towards our 2025 target of 40% of Scouts and 10% of Explorers achieving Top Awards.
• Design and pilot an offering that supports new Sections with a high-quality programme as they first open.
• Create a new programme offer for Explorers.

Progress a year on

• Census data shows 43% of young people, from Squirrels to Scouts, achieved Chief Scout Awards. 7% of young people over the age of 14 completed at least one Top Award, which is a 1.6% increase on the previous year.
• Our Squirrels programme is now established and continuing to grow, with 1,934 Dreys now open.
• We’ve focused on delivering a new Explorers programme. The main recommendations from the research in the discovery phase was for the 14–24 programme to be fun and impactful, have a flexible method of delivery, and encourage wider participation.
• Based on those recommendations, we worked with young people and volunteers to co-design a programme to pilot. We’re currently testing 26 new activity badges and five Challenge awards with a range of accompanying activities. These are all developed in collaboration with those that use them. Our ‘Test and Learn’ phase launched with 90 units across the UK and British Scouting Overseas (BSO).
• Our programme continues to reflect how thinking and talking about safety is a key skill for life. Through our Outdoor in 24 initiative, we encouraged all Scouts, from Squirrels to Network, to take part in more outdoor activities. We know being active outside is a key to improving mental health and wellbeing.
• In the last year, we’ve granted volunteers 13,953 Nights Away and Adventurous Activities permits, to support safe adventures. This year, 43,000 young people experienced a Night Away for the first time.
• We’re continuing to review the Activity Badges as part of continuous improvement. This year, for our Scouts Section, we’ve updated seven Activity Badges. We also launched a new badge design competition – the winner was the ‘History Comes Alive’ badge designed by a Cub from South Lanarkshire.
• We launched a blanket badge marking Islamophobia Awareness Month. We worked with volunteers in our Muslim Scout Fellowship to design activities for this optional initiative. We’re always looking for ways to help promote understanding, respect, and kindness in Scouts, contributing to greater tolerance in the wider community.
• We’ve worked with disabled and non-disabled adults and young people, and external experts to update our Beavers and Cubs Disability Awareness Activity Badges. These updates mean young people can learn about a wider range of disabilities, including those known as ‘hidden disabilities’. We updated our badge design to include the Hidden Disabilities Sunflower, a simple tool used by anyone wanting to communicate they have a less visibly obvious condition. Our thanks go to The Hidden Disabilities Sunflower for all their support and guidance.
• Working with volunteers and Swim England, Swim Wales, Scottish Swimming, Swim Ulster and the Swimming Teachers’ Association (STA), we aligned our Swimmer Staged Activity Badges with existing external swimming levels and awards. This simplifies how more young people achieve badges, because it’s easier to match Scouts swimming badges to young people’s swimming achievements outside Scouts.
• We concluded our Squirrels’ Family Engagement pilot of 46 leaders and submitted our recommendations report. We’re currently working on embedding these recommendations into our future plans.
• We awarded 381 young people with their King’s Scout Award this year. They’ll enjoy, or have enjoyed, celebrations at our Day of Celebration and Achievement in April 2025 or 2026.
• This year, 7,486 Explorer and Network members started on The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award (DofE). We’re proud that more than 600 Scouts go to Gold Award presentations at Buckingham Palace and the Palace of Holyroodhouse in May this year.

What's next

• Continuing to renew and improve our Beavers, Cubs, Scouts and Explorers programme activities. This includes launching Money Skills badges for both Scouts and Explorers, so that young people can continue the learning from the Beavers and Cubs Money Skills badges, all generously supported by HSBC.
• Our proposed new badge framework for Explorer Scouts will be tested by selected Units so we can learn how it works in practice.
• We’ll work with volunteers to understand what additional support helps them deliver the best programme. We know that a fun, adventurous and safe programme creates the right conditions to attract more young people to join Scouts.
• Developing activities to support all our young people with mental health, wellbeing, and healthy relationships, supported by the Omaze Million Pound House Draw.
• Testing new ways of delivering Scouts online and running activities in school holidays for underserved communities, supported with funding from DCMS Uniformed Youth Fund.