Beavers: YouShape: Have Your Say
Beavers shape their Colony through short, frequent, hands-on choices.
A Colony Forum is the perfect way to get Beavers involved in everything from programme ideas to camp planning — but it needs to look nothing like a meeting. Ten minutes, something fun, and an answer they can see the result of.
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The YouShape Award in Beavers
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The Beavers YouShape Award is four badges — the central YouShape badge first, then Plan, Lead and Represent in whatever order they choose. Beavers set their own requirements with their volunteer team and decide together when each one has been met. This is the only badge where the young person decides.
Read the national Beavers YouShape Award requirements
Plan is thinking creatively, working together and planning activities. Lead is supporting others, delivering the programme and stepping up on nights away. Represent is telling others about it and speaking up for the group.
Plan
- Bring an idea to the Colony Forum
- Help plan a game, a night or part of a sleepover
- Choose which badge the Colony works on next
Lead
- Lead a game or a cheer
- Take a turn as a Lodge Leader
- Help a new Beaver find their feet
Represent
- Share what the Colony decided with parents or the Group
- Speak up for your Lodge at the forum
- Tell people outside Scouts what Beavers is like
YouShape in one night
A complete Beavers session where the young people decide what happens next. It uses activity cards from this site, so you can print the night and run it as it stands. Try this at your next meeting. Download this session plan (PDF)
Quick Fire YouShape
Ten-minute Colony Forum
Split into Lodges. One question: what should we do on the last night of term? Each Lodge brings back one idea. Vote by hands. Put it in the programme before they go home.
Hand the game over
Ask a Beaver to explain the rules of a game they know to the whole Colony, with you beside them. That is the Lead badge started.
More activities are at the bottom of this page.
Closing the loop with Beavers
Asking is the easy half. Young people disengage when nothing visibly changes, so every South London youth forum ends the same way, in the same four lines. Say it out loud, then put it on the wall.
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Their first taste of leading change
Beavers is where a young person first discovers that having an idea and saying it out loud can change what happens. The Beavers YouShape Award is the first badge in the whole Programme that they, not you, decide.
How this relates to the strategy
Every young person is building the skills, character and confidence to thrive, with meaningful opportunities to lead. Young people are not just shaped by Scouts; they are shaping it. How Beavers youth shaped Scouting delivers the strategy.
Not sure where to start?
Start with one question
Pick one thing you genuinely have not decided yet, ask it next week, and act on the answer. That is a youth forum. My Youth Shaped Survival Guide
Ask your Youth Lead
Your District Youth Lead will come and run a forum with your section, or present the first few YouShape badges. Find your Youth Lead
Making sure every Beaver is heard
A forum that only works for confident talkers is not youth shaped — it just amplifies the loudest. Every young person has the right to contribute, and some will need extra time, support or a different way in. Never underestimate anyone’s ability to give their view; there are lots of ways to communicate feelings and ideas.
Encourage turn-taking
Pass a soft toy round the circle — only whoever is holding it speaks. Or use a single 'hot seat' chair that members take turns in. A volunteer scribes.
Set the ground rules first
Agree that people take turns and nobody shouts out. Quieter members contribute far more when they know they will not be interrupted.
Think about how you ask
Specific questions are more accessible than open ones. For an autistic young person, “which of these three games shall we play next week?” works better than “what shall we do?”
Give processing time
Offer to come back to someone, or let them hear others first. Sending the questions home the week before lets them think, and lets a parent or carer help them form an answer.
Offer more than one way in
Speaking, writing, drawing, voting, moving to one end of the room, or an anonymous ideas box. Several methods in one session is more fun and reaches more people.
Use photos as memory aids
A young person may give their views more easily one to one, to a volunteer or Young Leader who knows them well, and can nominate someone to share them with the group.
Explain the words we use
“Log chew”, “forum” and “lodge” mean nothing to a new member, and a young person who takes things literally may find them confusing. Say what they mean.
Scouting speaks to all: a volunteer’s guide to speech, language and communication needs · Scouts with additional needs · Additional needs and disabilities guidance