As part of the co-operative work with the National Children’s Deaf Society, colleagues at Gilwell are seeking to prepare a guide to advise Leaders on making mainstream Scouting deaf friendly.

Prior to 13 April Scout Groups with members who have hearing impairments were invited to ask the young people a number of questions a sample of which appear below:

• What are your favourite things to do at Scouts?
• Do you have friends at Scouts that are different to your school friends?
• Is there anything you find difficult at Scouts because you have a cochlea implant?
• Was there anything at camp you found especially hard or easy to do?

It struck me that this ‘quality assurance’ technique could easily be adapted to enable us to get feedback from young people about their first hand experiences of Scouting.

Further information about the above case study questions is available from Laura Spafford at Gilwell, Telephone: 020 8433 7129

The Blossom Project

The Scout Association is currently working with Allergy UK. Information for youth service providers about how to cope with an allergy and how to ensure that young people with allergies are fully included in youth group activities will be provided via The Blossom Project.

Laura Spafford, Programme and Development Adviser at Gilwell is hoping to provide some supplementary material related to Scouting in the form of the Development Case Study.

Laura would be delighted to hear from members of any leadership team who have experience of coping with a young person who has an allergy.

laura.spafford @ scout.org