Scouts

Bullying – it’s Not a Part of Scouting

Scouts Australia continued to promote its anti-bullying

message, with the launch of the video “Breaking the Cycle”

at the Australian Jamboree. The video outlined situations

which constitute bullying and solutions for youth members who

experience or see bullying behaviour.

Handbooks promoting anti-bullying

strategies within the Scout program and

templates for youth members to create

section codes for respectful behaviour

were also developed.

National Youth Council

Scouts Australia ensures that the issues of concern to youth

members reach key decision makers through the National Youth

Council (NYC). Consisting of 27 young people aged 13 to 25,

the NYC worked closely with the Youth Program Review.

The NYC was instrumental in the introduction of new National

badges, the Walkabout and Camper Awards. These recognise the

number of kilometres walked and the number of nights camped

over a Scout’s entire Scouting career. The NYC also conducted

consultations on issues including Lone Scouts, climate action,

and community involvement.

Scouts Australia recognises the importance of ensuring that

youth leadership is built into the structure of the organisation. In

2015 it introduced the new role of National Commissioner Youth

Empowerment, to be held by a youth member, and who will

implement policy at a national level.

Plan Do Review

A key NYC project was the

promotion of ‘Plan>Do>Review’, a

tool to enable youth members to

take charge of their own program.

Deliberately kept simple and

easily understood and applied, it

enables youth members to embed

their learning, and use their

knowledge, skills and experience

in new ways in new adventures.

Plan> Do>Review is used for

everything from an individual

game to the whole program, and

is especially helpful for running

big projects and adventures.

Centenary of Service

To commemorate the centenary of the landing of Australian and

New Zealand soldiers on the Gallipoli Peninsula in 1915, Scouts

Australia developed programming tools for all youth members

to learn what life was like on the battlefront 100 years ago. Over

32,000 special edition ‘Their Service Our Heritage’ badges were

distributed to youth members who had participated in activities

such as memorial services.

SCOUTS AUSTRALIA

ANNUAL REPORT TO THE NATION 2016