Youth Shaped

Scouts is all about young people and youth shaped Scouts is our way of reminding everyone to keep young people at the centre of everything we do.

We know that Scouts empowers young people. They learn to ask the big questions, play their part, and think for themselves. It can help them to build confidence in themselves and stand up for what they believe in.

As Scouts evolves, we want young people to take an active part in shaping their activities, getting involved with governance, creating a culture, and being the face of Scouts.

You’re probably already more youth shaped than you think!

For Scouts to be youth shaped, we need to continue helping young people develop the skills they need to give it a go.

Youth shaped is about embracing diverse views, new ideas, and opportunities, and building trust between generations.

As young people are developing their skills, you can:

• provide them with accessible and inclusive opportunities to plan their own programmes.
• encourage them to take the lead on elements of that programme.
• empower them to represent their views and ideas so that, ultimately, every decision we make has their best interests at heart.

Scouts is a movement for and about young people and each young person in our movement has a lot to offer the world.

As a volunteer, you’ve the unique opportunity to support them to develop the skills they need to succeed and youth shaped Scouts is the best way to do that.

The UN’s first priority for their Youth 2030 plan is to ‘Amplify youth voices for the promotion of a peaceful, just and sustainable world’.

We believe in our young peoples’ voices and youth-shaped is the best way to make sure they’re heard.

Young people are the future of the world and they’re already making a difference. As an organisation, we’re committed to helping our young people get ready to become our future leaders. 

• Create an ‘ideas box’ to give people ways submit their ideas, including anonymously
• Run a focus group led by another section volunteer, so everyone feels they can be open and honest
• Have smaller groups discussions so quieter Scouts can share their views more easily
• Let Scouts come up with and vote on activity ideas, including for trips and camps
• Evaluate each activity, such as by asking for feedback or scoring activities out of 10
• Support youth commissioners and young leaders in your area
• Run sessions created and led by Scouts, either individually or in groups
• Let different Scouts choose the games you play 
• Give Scouts opportunities to plan their own programmes, such as by getting them to create their dream Scout term or camp
• Ask everyone to choose a theme or topic they want to learn more about
• Have everyone vote on the next activity badge you do
• Let people share ideas in different ways, such as using stickers, writing, drawing and talking
• Use open questions to allow Scouts to explain their answer and build on each other’s ideas.
• Capture all information and thoughts, such as by taking notes
• Feedback to the group on what you plan to do with their suggestions and how their ideas will be used.