Membership

Scout Active Support welcomes adults over the age of 18 years and of all interests, abilities and backgrounds.

There is no requirement to have been involved in Scouting or Guiding before joining. All that is required is a willingness to volunteer some time to support Scouting.

The Scout Active Support Manager must become a Member of The Scout Association. To be a member or Coordinator of a Scout Active Support Unit, you must become a Member of The Scout Association.

For more information on Membership of The Scout Association, please see POR Chapter 3: Membership.

Transfer of membership from Scout Fellowship to Scout Active Support

Current members of Scout Fellowship who wish to become members of Scout Active Support must complete a new Adult Application form as they are moving to a new appointment.

If the applicant has had a DBS check, or Disclosure Scotland, or Access NI clearance from within the last 5 years, this is still valid.

Where an individual transfers from Scout Fellowship to Scout Active Support or takes on an additional appointment within England and Wales; or within Northern Ireland; or within Scotland a further Disclosure will not be required provided that:

• the procedures were followed at the initial appointment;
• that the person's service has been continuous; and
• that the person’s previous Disclosure was returned as clear.

Scout Active Support Managers and Coordinator

The Scout Active Support Manager is an Appointment of the:

• Group Scout Leader for Group Units,
• District Commissioner for District Units
• or the County Commissioner for County Units.

A Scout Active Support Coordinator is an optional appointment of the Scout Active Support Manager with agreement of the Group Scout Leader or responsible Commissioner.

Both appointments should follow the relevant appointment process which includes discussion with the line manager about the appointment and agreement of the role description.
For more information on this please see POR Chapter 16: Adult Roles

Training

All members of Scout Active Support, including Managers and Coordinators must validate Module 1: Essential Information.

Members of Scout Fellowship were required to complete Module 1, as a member of Scout Active Support, the module must be validated. Members of Scout Fellowship who are transferring Membership to Scout Active Support validation of Module 1 should be done within 5 months as with other adult appointments.

Members who are joining Scout Active Support who were not Scout Fellowship members, should complete and validate Module 1 in the first instance.

If adults have previously validated Module 1 in another role in Scouting, then there is no need for it to be validated again. However, if adults completed training for previous roles under an old training scheme, or if the completed training for Module 1 but not validation, then they will need to validate it.

Learning and validation can be done in a number of ways:

• a meeting with a Training Adviser
• opportunity to get whole Unit up to date together
• eLearning