Blog | Ensuring our movement is shaped by young people

Blog by Michael Shanks, Deputy Chief Commissioner – lead volunteer in Scotland working to grow Scouts, ensure it is shaped by young people and as inclusive and diverse as our communities.

We have been striving to be shaped by young people since our movement was founded and every night young people are shaping decisions about their experience in Scouts in Squirrel Dreys and Explorer Units all across the country.

More formally we’ve tried to make sure young people are also shaping decisions at a national level. We had Youth Advisory Groups which worked well in many areas but didn’t quite take off in many others. So we’ve been rethinking things a little.

How can young people be at the heart of decision making in our movement? 

The first big step on this journey is for us to appoint a young person aged 16 to 24 to be the Youth Commissioner for Scotland. Their role will be to represent young people’s views from across Scotland and participate in deliberations at a national level to make sure young people’s voices are heard at the highest levels of decision making. They will have a team of young people and adults around them with an interest in making Scouts more youth shaped and will be able to set their own agenda for what they think the priorities for our movement should be.

Look out for more information on this role in the next week, and please think about applying if you are aged 16 to 24 and want to be part of this exciting work.

There is much more detail in our plan which we are publishing today. A lot still has to be worked out too – we’ve deliberately left some of the more local detail to the Youth Commissioner and their team because if we want to be truly shaped by young people… we need to allow young people time and space to shape things like this too! 

This is the start of a new phase and the next steps are absolutely not set in stone so we look forward to working with you to come up with the best way forward so we can get on with the action of young people leading change, in partnership with adults.

Take a look at the Youth Commissioner advertisement and please share as widely as possible within your own networks so as many young people as possible know about the opportunity.