Four young people outside laughing together.

DofE Direct

DofE Direct is an independent way for 18 to 23-year-olds in the UK to complete a DofE Gold Award programme without the need to attend an in-person centre.

If you do not have access to a local DofE group, you can do your Gold DofE through DofE Direct. You can also go straight to Gold without having achieved a previous level.

DofE Direct is run through eDofE, the DofE’s online record system. Through eDofE you can access your account at any time and add your evidence to demonstrate the progress of your sections.

You’ll be able to progress through your DofE activities in your own time with remote support from a DofE Leader, who is a DofE staff member, via email and/or eDofE messaging.

To learn more about what’s involved in achieving your Gold DofE, take a look at DofE basics and Your DofE programme.

DofE Direct cannot support groups or participants from businesses, please take a look at DofE Workplace if you want to offer DofE to your early career employees.

Cost

The cost to join DofE Direct is £80.

This includes:

Your Welcome Pack
eDofE account set-up
Programme administration
Ongoing support from a DofE Direct Leader as you progress through your DofE Programme.

You can sign up and pay online. It takes 7-10 days to process your enrolment, then you’ll get your welcome email which includes your eDofE log in details.

Expedition and Residential activities are not included and will have extra costs dependent on the opportunities you choose.

Support

You’ll be supported by a DofE Direct Leader who is a DofE staff member. Your DofE Leader will support you with:

Programme guidance
Answering any programme queries you might have
Reviewing and approving your evidence
eDofE

You can contact your Leader by email or sending a message through eDofE.

You can also contact [email protected] for any eDofE questions and our customer support team for general enquiries.

Managing your DofE programme

You’ll manage your DofE programme through eDofE. You’ll choose your activities and find Assessors, and enter this information into your Programme Planners in eDofE for your DofE Leader to review. If you’re not sure who can be your Assessor, read our Choosing Assessors guidance.

Once approved by your DofE Leader as meeting programme requirements, you can start your activities.

While doing your activities, you must upload evidence regularly, at least once a month, for each section you’re working on. You do not have to work on your sections at the same time.

You’ll submit evidence to your DofE Leader who will review and contact you if there are any questions. Once you have completed a section for the required timescale you need to ask your Assessor to submit a report. Find out about Timescales for each section.

Completing your Expedition and Residential

DofE Direct does not organise Expeditions or Residentials.

You’ll be responsible for identifying organisations you can complete your Expedition and/or Residential section activities with, and you need to cover the cost of the opportunities you choose to complete in these sections.

For the Expedition, you must book an open expedition delivered by a DofE Approved Activity Provider (AAP) for both your practice and qualifying expeditions. You can book open expeditions through the Opportunity Finder. Your Expedition group will be the other participants also booked on to the open expedition opportunity.

For the Residential, you can choose any provider as long as it meets the Residential section requirements. If not using an AAP, you need pre-approval from your DofE Leader before booking on to an opportunity to make sure it will count.

There are lots of Expedition and Residential opportunities from our AAPs on our Opportunity Finder.

Transferring to DofE Direct

If you enrolled for a Gold Award with an organisation you’re no longer with, maybe due to ageing out, relocating, or taking a break, you can transfer to DofE Direct to continue with your DofE Programme.

If your account is currently archived, transferring to DofE Direct would automatically unarchive your eDofE account so you can pick up where you left off – any previously uploaded evidence will be saved.

Since you’ve already paid for and got your Welcome Pack, you will not pay the full fee. We’ll give you a referral code to reduce the cost to £40.

To transfer, please fill in the form at the bottom of this page and let us know you want to transfer. Please make sure you include your eDofE ID, date of birth, and the name of your previous centre.

Taking a break

If you worry about continuing your DofE programme, contact your DofE Direct Leader to let them know. You have until your 25th birthday to complete your programme.

If you need to take a break from your activities, you can. Record the details in an activity log or submit a note as evidence to explain any gaps.

You’ll need to make up any missed time at the end to make sure that you’ve met the full timescales. Your Assessor’s Report should include the start and finish dates of your programme, and dates of any breaks.

Under-18s

Whilst the wellbeing and safety of all our participants is paramount, due to the remote nature of DofE Direct, we have limited ability to support the welfare of those undertaking their DofE Programme with DofE Direct. For this reason, anyone under 18 will usually need to enrol through an in-person local DofE centre.

However, if you are aged 16 or 17, and have exceptional circumstances we may be able to consider a request to support you through DofE Direct, if you have completed a previous Award level and have no local provision available.

Please fill in the form at the bottom of this page with as much detail as possible about your exceptional circumstances for advice.

In the event it’s agreed DofE Direct could support, parental consent would be required along with a discussion around support needs.