Volunteering at Scouts is changing to help us reach more young people
Volunteering is changing to help us reach more young people
Volunteering is changing at Scouts. Read more
Note: Although in some parts of the British Isles Scout Counties are known as Areas or Islands –and in one case Bailiwick - for ease of reading this publication simply refers to County/Counties. In Scotland there is no direct equivalent to County or Area. In Scotland, Scouting is organised into Districts and Regions, each with distinct responsibilities. Some ‘County’ functions are the responsibility of Scottish Regions, whilst others lie with Scottish Districts. The focus of responsibility is outlined in Scottish Variations from POR.
Training Advisers (TAs) have a really important role to play in supporting adults from the start of their adult training journey to the award of their Wood Badge. However, those supporting adult learners need support and guidance too.
The toolkit is for Training Managers who want to run events locally for their TAs to promote networking, sharing in good practice, overcoming challenges and keeping up to date with the latest developments.
Reasons to use this toolkit include:
Lots of ideas for sessions that you can run, either on their own or as part of a support day, for your TAs. The sessions focus on various objectives which are outlined before each session. The sessions can be adapted as required to meet local needs. Any resources or additional information that is required are outlined before each session. The sessions outlined in this toolkit are not mandatory and do not replace the Module 25 – Assessing Learning training, that TAs are required to complete. Ideally, Module 25 – Assessing Learning training should be completed by TAs before attending your TA event.
Before you start planning your TA support events, it is a good idea to think about:
It's important to take some time before planning your events to think about what you and your TAs want to get out of the events. Consider if there is anything specific that you feel your TAs would benefit from knowing? You may want to address any local challenges that you feel need to be explored? Objectives have been included with each session below.
Do you have a local headquarters or other Scouting building where the events could be held? Are there any other local community venues that you could hire? Will the events be held in the one room, or will you also require a series of rooms for group work? You will need to think about the location of the venue in regard to the size and geography of your local area. In addition to this, consideration needs to be given to the accessibility requirements of those who will be attending your event, does the venue support attendees who may have additional needs, if not do you need to re-think the venue choice.
You may want to consider running some of these sessions online as a webinar or Skype session, rather than getting all of your TAs together at the same time. The sessions are primarily designed to be run as face-to-face sessions but they can be run online if the need arises. Depending on the budget available, you may want to turn your event in to a bit of a ‘thank you’ for all the hard work and time that your TA’s provide.
You do not have to organise and run the whole event yourself. You may want to ask members of your District or County training team if they can help to run the event. Also, there may be other Training Managers in your local area who could help out.
The amount of content you wish to cover at your events will dictate how long it is. A whole day event may be too much of a time commitment for some TAs; therefore it may be a better idea to schedule an afternoon, morning or evening session, or a series of them, instead.
It’s worth thinking about the structure of your events, whether you want to run the same programme for all participants or whether you want to offer different sessions. For example, you could run an introductory session and task for all participants, followed by break out workshops focusing on different area, closed by a question and answer session for everyone.
It could be a good idea to get Group Scout Leaders and District/County Commissioners to attend where possible. Even if they are not currently TAs, by coming along to the event they will gain a better understanding of what TAs do, of the Adult Training Scheme, and of how they can support learners that they line manage
Do you have anyone locally who could come along to open or close the event and act as a keynote speaker? This can be a powerful way of getting key messages across and setting the tone for the event. Contact the Adult Support Team at UKHQ on adult.support@scouts.org.uk to find out more about national training volunteers who can help with this.
Do ensure that you allow opportunities for networking and idea sharing at your events. This will provide your TAs with invaluable opportunities to meet and speak to others that they may not normally come in to contact with and to share good practice.
Also, running an event can create a real ‘feel good factor’ amongst your TAs, particularly if you have not run anything specifically for them for a while.
At your initial event, it is a good idea to find out from the TAs in attendance whether they would like further support events, what they would like covered, and how often they would like these to take place. This will help you to plan future events and ensure that you are meeting the needs of your TAs.