A brief inquiry into Scouting and its value to young adults
Scouting loses massive amounts of kids from the movement (our future leaders) once they move to secondary school and college. As a “product” we as the scouting movement “sell” scouting as Fun & Adventure. That is fine for a younger audience but I would contest that it is enough for the young adult in today’s world. So, what are young adults looking for that scouting isn’t providing?
I think there is a case to have our experts at the Scouting HQ to invest some time and money into having a much stronger “value propositions” for young adults and their parents on the topic of Career value from scouting. In Hong Kong the scouting program is almost ESSENTIAL to getting a top job of university placement. The proven values and skills young adults get out of their quality program is a valued commodity within this ultra-competitive job market. The US has a similar regard for their eagle scouts, other organisations around the world also have similar cultural attitude to scouting as a value to careers.
Adecco the world’s largest human resources company has invested millions in cold hard CASH into the World Scouting Organisation to forward the movement. When quizzed on their support the VP said that he recognised that scouting delivered the soft skills like leadership or confidence that was missing from conventional education curriculums. Their customers (most of the largest corporations in the world) were seriously looking for these skills in their future employees. The clear message for me is that we clearly have something to offer young adults and their education/career focused parents apart from “come along to scouts for a good time”. But is the UK scouting movement even capable of turning out the kind of program countries like Thailand, Japan, Denmark, Hong Kong, and the US deliver to their participants that makes them so in demand from top employers? – any comments?
I am working on a document/project that is a study into the application of the Dept. of Children, schools and Families and their 14-18 reform initiative. Basically they are looking to Industry to provide a step up to workplace training program they loosely refer to as "the diploma" and they are seeking organisation to use existing resource for on the job training and experience. This is a GREAT way for us to "sell" our Explorer and especially young leaders program to youth and parents.
The premise is as follows: We already provide leadership, confidence etc. (the attributes of the scouting program to youth) but with only a tiny bit of extra effort we could incorporate a "training program" that basically consists of the existing young leaders program, 1 1/2 hrs. per week unit volunteer work and another 1-2 days training on a more specific subject that interests the participant e.g. charity administration, event organisation, camp management etc. This would then open the doors to thousands of kids who are actively seeking practical work experience to put in their resume, from a world recognised organisation, with definite practical benefits to those looking for any job in volunteer management, charity or personnel management careers. For the Scouting association it’s a little paperwork, a tiny bit of management for an LDO and Voila' we have multiple mini leaders assisting leadership all over the county. Potential members, PLUS they will open the doors for us to their schools, colleges, and social networks for further recruitment opportunities.
Anyway this mini project of mine is just a bit of exploration into a concept from scout, explorer, and network participant feedback that they are looking for not just a good time anymore, kids and their parents are looking for VALUE from all their activities. Scout explorer programs can offer it, if we want to put that extra little bit of effort in for them to achieve it.
Oh , almost forgot there is also a whole thing about accreditation for training that we provide (and the “on the job” experience this could offer explorers would also qualify) being put into the new education credit scheme. This basically means that if you do accredited training then you can take that and apply it to a registered course e.g. Scouting for 1 year might get you 50% of a diploma in child welfare work.
Please feel free to contact me if this is something you are also interested in and I will see if we can collaborate on this potential discussion paper.
Yours in Scouting,
Matthew Black
Development Officer GLMW
ldo@glmwscouts.org.uk
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