Youth Shaped

The more young people are involved in shaping their Scouting experiences the more they will get out of it, and the more likely they are to stay, do well and achieve their top awards.

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.

What is 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.

How can we be youth shaped?

You’re probably already halfway there. 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, it’s up to you to -:

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.

The importance of youth shaped

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 have the unique opportunity to support them to develop the skills they need to succeed; 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: 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.

YouShape Award

At Scouts, young people learn how to speak up and take the lead. That’s what the new YouShape Award is all about.

The YouShape Award makes it even easier to embed being youth shaped into your programme. At the same time, it’ll help young people work with their leaders to learn leadership skills that they’ll use for the rest of their lives.

The journey so far

By 2025, our goal is that 250,000 young people will have the opportunity to shape their experience at Scouts every year. This award helps us get there. It makes it even easier to embed chances for young people to speak up and take the lead right into our programmes.

If you’re a Youth Commissioner, check out our page on information for Youth Commissioners for some hints and tips for supporting other volunteers in delivering the award.