Youth Program Review
Sharing Ideas with Scouts from Overseas
A key milestone during the Youth Program Review has been the International Gathering, an event which brought together key Australian stakeholders to hear the experiences of other NSO’s and the reviews of their youth program.
International Gathering
As one of 162 National Scout Organisations (NSOs) in the world, Scouts Australia is not alone in reviewing its youth program! A number of countries have done similar reviews in recent years, including Scouts Canada and Scouting Ireland. Over a weekend in July, around 50 Scouting youth and adults from all over Australia had the chance to meet with key representatives of these National Scout Organisations at Scouts SA HQ. These included the Team Leaders and Mentors from our Stage 3 research teams, representatives of each Branch, and members of the National Youth Council and SA Branch Youth Council. The weekend was the perfect opportunity to find out all about these countries’ efforts to make their organisations as relevant and contemporary as possible in the changing world and bring the mission of Scouting to as many young people as possible.
Brains were working overtime and excitement grew and grew as those present imagined the possibilities for Australian Scouting. A report from the the Youth Council members who attended highlighted some of the biggest messages to come out of the weekend. These included the idea of “One Program”, working to build better connections throughout Scouting sections and organisational levels with the youth program at the centre.
Another major highlight was the idea of “youth-led, adult supported”: the concept that Scouting needs to be driven and led by youth as much as possible in order to remain interesting and relevant to youth in a quickly changing society.
Plan > Do > Review > was another approach that was often referred to; something we can use in all areas of Scouting to be really aware of the great things we are learning by doing.
The Way from Here
Our Stage 3 teams will now surge forward into several months of research, equipped with the enthusiasm and excitement from the International Gathering. While it’s important to share ideas with countries like Canada and Ireland, we now need to consider how we can adapt some of their ideas to our Australian society and of course come up with our own! The teams’ work will combine past and current research from previous reviews, outsourced market research, academic research from outside Scouting and of course the work of other NSOs like Canada and Ireland. The teams will be doing their own research too, including seeking feedback from people in the Scouting and wider community; you may be lucky enough to cross paths!
In early 2015, this research was fed directly into our first group of recommendations from the YPR that will be put forth for approval.
Keep up to date on the progress of the Youth Program Review here.
