Conversations

If you’d love to practice and develop your teamwork, communication and planning skills by delivering activities, here’s how you may approach this conversation:

What do you want the outcome to be? You might want to…

• Feel more involved in the leadership team  
• Work towards your missions and modules  
• Learn more about how to run activities  
• Share a great idea for an activity or game with your group

What could you say?  

• You could say that you've found an activity that you'd love to run with the group. They may want to find out the details of the activity and what it’ll involve, including the resources needed. This’ll be to help you run it, and not because they don’t trust you!
  
• Ask if there are any activities coming up you could lead on.
  
• Share your reasons for wanting to be involved. For example, this could just be so that you feel like part of the team or because you're interested in sharing a skill or passion you have.
  

When could you have the conversation?  

• During a planning meeting  
• The week before - can you tie your activity or game idea into the plan for that week, or offer to lead one of the planned activities? 
  

How could you communicate with them?  

• You could speak to them at end of your meeting after it’s happened
• You might email them, offering to help, but with enough time to prep
• You could use your volunteer team WhatsApp group – but make sure your parent/carer is in the group too before you join it. You could offer to help, but explain you need enough time to prep

If you enjoy delivering activities and running games, but you wish you'd had more time to prepare and don’t like being put on the spot, here's how you may approach this conversation:

What do you want the outcome to be?  

• Feel more in control of what you're doing  
• Feel more prepared to run activities  
• Feel you have some 5-minute filler activities or games for your group when needed

What could you say?  

• You’re really enjoying the chance to lead on activities, so you want to make sure you’re delivering the best games and activities you can  
• You don’t like being put on the spot and you'd love more time to prepare 
• You’re happy to work with the team to come up with some ideas for some five-minute fillers that you all know and can refer to for spare time

When could you have the conversation?  

• During a planning meeting  
• After a session where you've been put on the spot  

How could you communicate with them?  

• At the end of your meeting (after it’s happened) 
• Email them, offering to help, but with enough time to prep
• Leaders' WhatsApp group (offering to help but with enough time to prep) 

If the adult leadership team often plan the term without you, and you’d love to get involved too, here’s how you may approach this conversation:

What do you want the outcome to be?  

• Feel more involved in the leadership team  
• Share some of the ideas you have  
• Work towards my missions and modules  
• Have a better idea of the plan for the term  
• Learn more about how to plan a meeting

What could you say?  

• You could ask the team when they usually plan for the next term  
• You could ask if you can be involved too  
• You could share your reasons for wanting to be involved. For example, this could just be so you feel like part of the team, you have ideas to share or because you’re interested.

When could you have the conversation?  

• Towards the end of term
• A couple of weeks before the planning meeting if you know when it’ll be  

How could you communicate with them?  

• You could speak to them at end of your meeting to find out when the planning meeting is and how you could join
• You might email them, offering to attend the meeting and sharing some ideas
• You could use your volunteer team WhatsApp group – but make sure your parent/carer is in the group too before you join it

If you’d love to try and develop a new skill, but you’re not sure how you can go about it, here’s how you may approach this conversation:

What do you want the outcome to be?  

• Opportunity to try something new  
• Feel supported by the Leader  
• Start working towards the Young Leaders' Scheme  
• Try something you haven’t done before  

What could you want to say?  

• I’d love to develop my communication skills, but I’m not sure how to go about it  
• I’d love to develop my teamwork skills. Is there anything else I can do to support the unit team?  
• What skills do you think I could work and how?

When could you have the conversation? 

• Ask to talk to them at the start or end of the meeting  
• Speak to them during a meeting and ask if you can chat to them at an appropriate time
• During a planning meeting, so you can try to arrange learning the new skill into the following term

How could you communicate with them?  

• You could speak to them at end of your meeting and explain which skill you’d like to work on
• You might email them, and tell them what you’d like to work on
• You could use your volunteer team WhatsApp group – but make sure your parent/carer is in the group too before you join it

As a Young Leader, you’ll get the chance to start experiencing what it’s like to be a Leader in Scouting, but you need to remember to keep yourself and others safe, too.

Your Section Leaders are responsible for your safety and welfare during meetings and events. You should make sure that you’re always appropriately supervised, and you should never be left alone with young people.

Remember the three principals of staying safe:

1. Set an example for others to follow.
2. Pass on any concerns you have about young people or adults.
3. Keep yourself safe and have fun.

If something came up in one of your meetings that didn’t seem quite right and you’re nervous to speak to the team, it can be a difficult conversation.

Always take concerns about the safety and well-being of young people seriously and pass them on to an adult leader immediately.

Here’s how you may approach this conversation:

What do you want the outcome to be?  

• Make sure your young people are safe, and their welfare is at the forefront 
• Follow the correct procedure to report safeguarding  
• Make sure you protect yourself 

What might you want to say to the young person?  

If a young person tells you they are being abused, or they raise a concern about their safety or well-being, you should do the following:

1. Allow the young person to speak without interruption and accept what they say.
2. Tell them that you will offer support but that you must pass the information on to an adult leader who will be able to help them.
3. Immediately tell an adult leader.
4. Make a note of what was said and give the information to the same leader.

What might you want to say to the adult leadership team?  

If you have a concern about a young person’s safety and well-being, or there is a concern or complaint about an adult or yourself, you should do the following:

1. Immediately tell an adult leader - ask to speak to them to report a safeguarding concern  
2. Make a note of the facts as you know them and give information to the same leader. Pass on as much information as you can, but make sure you don’t change any of the information you’ve been told by the young person or add in any of your opinion. You just need to tell an adult them exactly what happened.

When could you have the conversation? 

• As soon as possible after it happened, if you can, or straight after the meeting  

How could you communicate with them?  

• At the end of your meeting in person
• You may choose to follow up with an email or handwritten account to log the information, too

You can contact the Safeguarding Team, who are all operational from home, and with communication continuing through the 020 8433 7164 telephone number and safeguarding@scouts.org.uk and vetting@scouts.org.uk email addresses, communication is all being monitoring as usual. Safeguarding Officers and National Managers can also be contacted via direct dial and/or email.

If you’d love to try and make sure all your young people can get the most out of your meetings and you think your group can do more to break down barriers for new and existing members, here’s how you may approach this conversation:

What do you want the outcome to be?   

• Share some of the ideas you have  
• Work towards your missions and modules  
• Make sure the young people get the most out of their meetings 
• Encourage new young members to be able to join Scouts
• Celebrate a wide, diverse range of events in your meetings

What could you say?  

• Ask if there are any young members who have additional needs 
• Suggest you change some of your games or activities to help make things more inclusive. You could look at the ‘Change the level of the challenge’ or ‘Make it accessible’ cards on the activities from the Scouts activity finder, or discuss adapting the badge requirements  
• Ask if you could look into equipment, such as pen grips, that may help some members
• Share your reasons for wanting to make adaptations so that they can understand too 
• Ask if there are any good training resources they know of to help you understand more or suggest you all take part in some training together
• Ask to look at the Inclusion and Diversity pages during the next planning meeting 
• See if you could forward different celebration events or badges that you might want to include in your next planning meeting and ask if you can run the activities for that week

When could you have the conversation?  

• After a meeting where you notice a young member could be better supported or mentions a problem/barrier they have when taking part in an activity or game
• As soon as you have an idea for how to make things better 

How could you communicate with them?  

• You could speak to them at end of your meeting and explain what you think the group could do to help young members join or be more included
• You might email them, and tell them what your ideas are
• You could use your volunteer team WhatsApp group – but make sure your parent/carer is in the group too before you join it