Celebrating the success of the YouShape Award and exploring what's next
The YouShape Award launched in October 2021. Two years on, find out about what it’s achieved so far, as well as how we’re planning to take it further. Izzie Inga, Deputy UK Youth Commissioner for Perception, tells us the plans.
What's the YouShape Award?
Our YouShape Award is an opportunity for young people to choose what skill they’d like to develop, then decide for themselves if they’ve met the requirement.
It’s a great way to make sure our programme remains youth-shaped, giving volunteers the opportunity to hand the planning and delivery of the award over to young people.
The award is split into four badges – Central, Plan, Lead and Represent.
- Central: Central is all about young people thinking about what they want to achieve, setting a goal and making it happen.
- Plan: Planning allows young people to think creatively, work together, and organise some exciting activities for their programme.
- Lead: Taking the lead allows young people to support their peers and deliver their programme, such as by taking on new roles for Nights Away.
- Represent: Represent is all about speaking up and shouting about Scouts. Young people might do something good for their local community, plan to invite in more young people or have a say in their local Scout area.
Scouts has always been youth-led and the YouShape Award is a great way to reflect this.
By 2025, our goal is that 250,000 young people will have the opportunity to shape their experience at Scouts every year.
What we’ve achieved so far
Since launching the YouShape Award in October 2021, an incredible 185,000 young people have received their YouShape badge, meaning more people than ever have had the chance to positively influence their Scouts experience.
We’ve been lucky enough to hear of some incredible stories from across Scouts about the award, too.
In London, at the Minerva Explorer Unit, we spoke to two Scouts, Audrey and Annabelle.
‘The excitement on the Scouts’ faces when they find out the new activity is so fulfilling,’ Annabelle told us, while Audrey added that ‘seeing our plans come to life has been exciting and rewarding’.
In Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, they’ve used the YouShape award to help build their Scouts Youth Council. The Youth Council gives a voice to young people within their Scout Groups. We spoke with Kyra, the District Youth Commissioner and Explorer volunteer, who told us more.
‘My team have learned that our Youth Council members don’t necessarily need to be the oldest Scouts or the ones who have the most badge,’ Kyra explained, ‘We’d rather speak to those that are full of creative ideas and outside the box thinking.’
‘Using this award, young people have been able to develop new and different ways to run forums to bring out the best ideas for their sections,’ Kyra added.
It’s clear that the YouShape Award has made a fantastic and positive difference across Scouts. Thank you for sharing your experiences Audrey, Annabelle and Kyra!
Therefore, we’re keen to continue making sure that young people can have a say in what Scouts looks like for them. So, what’s next?
The next steps for the YouShape Award
We’re excited to be able to introduce the YouShape Award to Squirrels, our youngest section.
Squirrels have already been showing just how much four and five year olds can do. Therefore, we want to enable them to join in with shaping their experience at Scouts, full of excitement, ideas and imagination
We’ll be piloting the YouShape Award with some Squirrels in January next year, with the plan to fully launch across Scouts by 2024.
How to get involved
Find out about how to run the YouShape Award, including answers to our frequently asked questions.
Learn more about the YouShape Award