Young Leaders & Duke of Edinburgh’s Award
Young people taking on their Duke of Edinburgh’s awards often use their volunteering through the Young Leader’s scheme for their Scouts top awards too. Within both the DofE and Scouts awards young people are expected to complete one hour per week of volunteering (or equivalent e.g. 2 hours every two weeks) meaning that Young Leaders are very likely to be completing the volunteering requirements, whether they realise it or not.
At Scouts, young people must be Explorer Scouts or Network members to do their DofE Awards. Young Leaders also meet this requirement, but not all Explorer Units will be actively running a DofE or top awards programme.
How can you support the awards
Assessor
As part of their award process, young people need to provide at least one piece of evidence to track their progress in each section of the award, which will then be examined by an assessor before a decision’s made. As a volunteer within a section you may be witness to the young person completing their volunteering and could provide a report.
You can do this online at www.dofe.org/assessor with the participant’s eDofE number and level.
Leader
If young people coming to your section don’t have DofE or top awards as a part of their programme you could be in a position to change that.
As well as volunteering, young people will need to complete a skill and a physical section for one hour per week as well as an expedition. There’s lots more information on our Duke of Edinburgh’s Award page. Remember, the Chief Scout’s Platinum, Chief Scout’s Diamond and Queen’s Scout Award are intentionally very similar to the equivalent DofE Awards so young people can complete both at the same time.
Each County/Area has a DofE Adviser who can let you know how to get your programme started, and you need to let them know before you start. In most cases the adviser will be known to Explorer Scout Leaders, District Explorer Scout Commissioner and District Commissioner so these will be the best people to contact if you don’t already know who the adviser is.