Background and our Strategy
In 2018, ‘Skills For Life’, our strategy for Scouts was launched which focuses on preparing more young people with skills for life, supported by our amazing adult volunteers delivering inspiring programmes. The strategy will last up until 2025 and focuses on growing Scouts, making it more inclusive, shaped by young people and having a greater impact on our communities.
As part of the ‘Skills For Life’ strategy, the Scouts are developing a new volunteering culture to make volunteering easier and more fun so that we can attract more volunteers and so that our current volunteers want to stay. There have been over 10,000 people that have shaped the new transformation including volunteers at all levels of the organisation as well as young people and those outside the organisation. Through this consultation process, it has been learned that leaders deeply enjoy volunteering, to give young people skills for life, but challenges still exist. The transformation process is not just about changing processes but about building a new volunteering culture that’s inclusive, supportive, digitally enabled, has clear roles, focuses on relevant learning and is welcoming to new volunteers.
Apex 2023
On Saturday 9th September 2023, we held Apex 2023, our Kent Scouts transformation event which attracted over 400 adult volunteers from across the County.
What’s changing?
There are four key areas as part of the transformation of the volunteering experience
- A warmer welcome for all - focused on creating a new digital tool to help recruit volunteers as well as redesigning the current appointments process into a welcome conversation.
- More engaging learning - focused on replacing the current Adult Training Scheme with new content and digital learning tools that reduce and remove heavy administration work of recording and validating learning. Making Wood Badges optional and structured on a personalised learning experience for the individual.
- Positive volunteering everyday - moving to a teams-based approach with all volunteers in teams with a clear purpose and shared tasks. Replacing Role Descriptions with Team Descriptions to allow teams to decide between themselves how tasks get allocated through the support of Team Leaders. Updating role titles to reflect how we volunteer to make them more understandable and appealing. Some named roles will be retained where they serve a clear purpose while other roles will be replaced such as Commissioners.
- Digital support - focused on launching new digital tools for welcoming, learning and adult membership system all to be accessed through a single sign on through scouts.org.uk.
Learn more about transformation
To learn more about transformation, visit the following link:When will transformation happen?
The timeline for transformation has recently been extended to ensure that everything is well scoped, clearly communicated, and ready for delivery. We are already benefitting from some areas of transformation including the new 'Teams based approach'. Areas to follow include 'A warmer welcome', 'More engaging learning', and the new digital tools.
Support
Kent Scouts have a dedicated Transformation Team to support our volunteers as we go through transformation. Our team is on hand to offer you with support as you deliver the changes locally.
The Transformation Team
Nirav Patel - County Support Team Leader & County Transformation Lead
Matt Paramor - County Adviser for Transformation
Isobel Myers - County Adviser for Transformation
