Information for adult leaders

1. Your DofE centre chooses up to four Young Leaders through your chosen method.
2. In eDofE, the DofE Leader selects ‘Invite for Young Leader’ on the young person’s participant profile.
3. The young person gets an email inviting them to fill in the online registration form. For under 18s (16 in Scotland), parental permission is automatically requested.
4. After filling in the form, the young person gets confirmation that we have their registration.
5. When we have parental permission, Young Leaders get details for their new eDofE Young Leaders account within a few days. They log in and add their basic information to change the status from ‘new’ to ‘active’.

How you recruit is up to you. You could ask prospective Young Leaders to fill out an application form, or you could meet with them individually for an informal interview.

Here are some questions you can ask if you choose to do interviews:

• Why would you like to be a Young Leader?
• What skills and experience would you bring to the role?
• What do you understand the Young Leader role to be?
• Why did you start your DofE?
• What was / is the most rewarding part of your DofE?
• What aspect was / is the most challenging for you with your DofE?
• If a potential participant was not sure whether the DofE was for them, what would you say?
• If a parent asked you why their child should take part in the DofE and what the benefits are for participants, what would you say?
• If successful, how would you see the Young Leader role working?
• What would you like to be involved in?
• What challenges do you think other participants could face when doing their Award? What are potential solutions for these challenges?
• If successful, what are you most looking forward to about the Young Leader role?
• What would you like to get out of doing the Young Leaders Programme? What skills would you like to develop?
• How would you inspire other young people to start their DofE Journey?
• How would you motivate DofE participants to finish their Award?
• What would you say to a DofE participant who was concerned about the Expedition section?

There are several ways you can offer ongoing support to your Young Leaders.

• Give feedback: Be prepared to offer constructive feedback to your Young Leader in their activities. This could be on their planning, their delivery or the way they handled a particular situation. Remember to allow them to learn from their mistakes and boost their confidence.
• Act as a sounding board: Listening is a key skill for mentors. Be prepared to listen and have a discussion with your Young Leader. Help find solutions to any issues they may have and respect their views even if you do not agree.
• Coach: Share your own experiences and offer advice. Identify resources which will support their learning and activities.

Young Leaders who have finished the programme and turned 18 can become adult Leaders if they want. As their Manager, Leader or Co-ordinator, you’ll need to discuss with them which eDofE account they should use. This may depend on your centre’s policies.

The options are that they:

• Keep using their Young Leader account
• Have a new adult Leader account created.

If they keep their Young Leader account there are no safeguarding issues as they have no access to emails, addresses and phone numbers, but they’re unable to approve the final section of the Award and submit to a verifier.

If they get a new adult Leader account they can submit Awards for verification, but they will also have access to participants’ emails, addresses and phone numbers.

Visit the eDofE help pages to get support.