Youth groups are clamouring for more volunteers amid a rise in the number of parents seeking affordable and sociable outdoor activities for their children away from screens.
Groups including Girlguiding and the Woodcraft Folk are facing substantial unmet demand for their sessions as the Scouts this week said their waiting list has hit a historic high.
More than 170,000 people are now on waiting lists to join the Scouts and Girlguiding implying that unless about 40,000 more adults commit to the “radical act” of volunteering these children will remain unable to take part.
The situation has led to calls for the new government to give workers rights to take leave to volunteer – a right which now exists for school governors, councillors and trades unionists.
The Scouts has called for the government to enable up to a week of annual leave, ideally paid. The National Council for Voluntary Organisations’ chief executive, Sarah Elliott, warned charities were struggling to keep up with demand and urged ministers to encourage employers “to allow their staff to take paid time off for volunteering” and help people “volunteer in a way, and at a time, that suits them”.
Demand for places has been rising, particularly among parents of younger children. The Scouts launched a popular Squirrels division for four- to six-year-olds in 2021 and “our ability to recruit volunteers is not keeping up with the level of parental interest in the movement”, said spokesperson, Simon Carter.
Polling for the Scouts by YouGov found increasing trust in the movement, with 85% of adults saying they trust it as an organisation up from 70% in a comparable survey in 2023.
“Parents of children in that age range, who have been locked down for a lot of their lives, know they can benefit from what we do,” he said.
“The parents want for their children’s self-assurance, increased resilience, to meet kids they wouldn’t normally meet and do stuff with other kids in groups and to do that outside a school setting. Anecdotally, people like the fact we go outside and do stuff in the wood, light fires and don’t let them look at their screens.”
Girlguiding’s deputy chief guide, Sally Kettle, said: “Anything that encourages and supports adults to give their time would be great for us,” adding that there had been “a significant decrease in the confidence and wellbeing of young women”.
“Older girls want more adventurous activities and lots of our girls want girl-only spaces where they can be themselves and grow their confidence,” she said.
Owen Sedgwick-Jell, the head of membership at the Woodcraft Folk, said: “Coming out of Covid lots of people have craved getting back to human connection and people wanted that for their young people as well. Schools have rushed to put in a [post-Covid] recovery curriculum to sort out the academics, but there’s lots of desire for the softer skills – working together, cooperation and learning to get along with others.”
“The challenge is we are driven by volunteers,” he said. “When we open something in an area where there has been no provision outside school for a while, everyone wants a piece of it, but persuading people to part with their time for nothing is harder. It is quite a radical act to do that.”
A total of 107,000 people are waiting to join the Scouts, which has 440,000 members in just over 7,000 scout groups. It has recently recruited 2,250 new adult volunteers. It received just over £6.3m in grants from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to tackle waiting lists and set up new groups. It intends to open 500 more sections by 2025.
Esther Edelman-Heyes, a mother of two and social entrepreneur in Lewes, East Sussex, recently helped open a new Woodcraft Folk group for children aged six upwards and said the demand was such they could double the places if they could attract more volunteers.
“It’s really difficult to recruit volunteers,” she said. “People are really happy to send their kids, but because of the cost of living crisis people are having to work long hours to make ends meet so there are fewer people available.
“There has been a spike in interest in outdoor education since Covid when people became more aware of the mental health benefits of meeting outside and Woodcraft Folk offers co-operative education led by and for young people as well as camping and other outdoor activities,” she said. “It’s an alternative to Scouts.”