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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

Discover what this means

Young Leaders and the DofE

Young people taking on their Duke of Edinburgh’s awards often use their volunteering through the Young Leader’s scheme for their Scouts top awards too. Within both the DofE and Scouts awards young people are expected to complete one hour per week of volunteering (or equivalent e.g. 2 hours every two weeks) meaning that Young Leaders are very likely to be completing the volunteering requirements, whether they realise it or not.

At Scouts, young people must be Explorer Scouts or Network members to do their DofE Awards. Young Leaders also meet this requirement, but not all Explorer Units will be actively running a DofE or top awards programme.

How can you support the awards

Assessor

As part of their award process, young people need to provide at least one piece of evidence to track their progress in each section of the award, which will then be examined by an assessor before a decision's made. As a volunteer within a section you may be witness to the young person completing their volunteering and could provide a report.

Leader

If young people coming to your section don’t have DofE or top awards as a part of their programme you could be in a position to change that.

As well as volunteering, young people will need to complete a skill and a physical section for one hour per week as well as an expedition. There’s lots more information on our DofE page. Remember, the Chief Scout's Platinum, Chief Scout's Diamond and King’s Scout Award are intentionally very similar to the equivalent DofE Awards so young people can complete both at the same time.

Each County/Area has a DofE Adviser who can let you know how to get your programme started, and you need to let them know before you start. In most cases the adviser will be known to Explorer Scout Leaders, DESCs and DCs so these will be the best people to contact if you don’t already know who the adviser is.

An activity introduction to DofE

If there are other Young Leaders who've already completed a DofE Award, you could ask them to run a session for others to introduce DofE and Scouts top awards. As an award holder, their own experience could inspire others to take part too!