On Saturday 3 February, I took four Young Leaders to Manchester to take part in the programme review and development day for the Young Leader Scheme.
There were about 40 people, with majority of them being young people, and 10 Leaders all of whom are helping to deliver the Young Leader Scheme in their Counties or Districts. The day was run by the Programme Team from Gilwell.
The aim of the day was to review some of the changes that the Programme Team has been working on for the last 18 months.
The Young Leaders looked at two modules. Module F – more activities around inclusivity and Module J which currently covers activities on communication partly in Module I and partly new activities about articulating the skills and experience gained as a Young Leader. The Young Leaders reviewed them once they had taken part in the relevant module and said that they really enjoyed them both.
The Leaders during this time were looking at the resources for the Section Leaders, the modules that the YLs were undertaking and information for Section Leaders, GSLs, DESCs and Executives.
The day started with the Leaders and YLs doing Ice Breakers in the morning in order to get to know one and another and break down barriers, so that open communication between the YLs could be fluent. We then came together and looked at the Young Leader log book and the changes to it that included the placement agreement.
The next part of the day’s programme involved the YLs being split into two groups and working on the two modules that had been chosen. The YLs gained a lot from this session, including:
- Sharing and discussing ideas – “hands on” testing out the activities
- Meeting new scouts who were passionate about the Young Leader scheme,
- Opportunity to visit Manchester and learn about the local culture and history
- Certificates to recognise our achievements and efforts
- New resources about Scouting.
From a Leader’s perspective, it was brilliant to meet others that are involved with the scheme and how they manage it and make the programme work. What I found was that the ESL YL role is not the model that is commonly followed.
Most of the people there were County people, so they run the YL Programme Modules at that level rather than at District, although this does also happen, depending on the need for the modules.
It was a very positive day!
Allison Gamble