Our Framework

Voluntary Service

This section of the Award provides a young person with a greater sense of worth from having given voluntary service and help to others and their community. The opportunity to give voluntary service over an extended period of time enables young people to witness and experience the benefits that their service provides to others and encourages them to become more active, engaged citizens.

Providing service to others also develops a young person’s humanity and character, both of which will enable them to continue to develop positively.

Benefits and Outcomes of Voluntary Service

Learning patience, tolerance, and compassion
Overcoming ignorance, prejudice, apathy and fear
Increasing awareness of the needs and challenges of others
Exploring and improving interpersonal skills and self-development skills
Enhancing leadership qualities
Trusting and being trusted
Making a real difference to the lives of others
Accepting the responsibility of commitment to others
Meeting new people from different backgrounds
Forming a lifelong habit of community involvement
Enjoyment and a sense of satisfaction in helping others
Being able to relate to others from different generations

Skill Development

The Skills section provides the opportunity for a participant either to improve on an existing skill, or to try something new. As with other sections, a level of commitment over time to progress in a skill leads to a sense of achievement and well-being as well as possibly leading to improved employability.

Benefits and Outcomes of Skill development

Discovering and developing new abilities, or improving on existing talents
Increasing self-confidence by successfully setting and achieving a goal
Refining awareness of one’s own potential
Developing time management and planning skills
Enhancing self-motivation
Interacting socially by meeting new people and interacting with other people, often older, in a meaningful way
Improving employability by learning vocational skills

Physical Recreation

Encouraging healthy behaviours has benefits not only for participants but also for their communities, whether through improved health, or active participation in team activities. The Physical Recreation section therefore specifically aims to improve the health, team skills, self-esteem and confidence of participants.

Benefits and outcomes of Physical Recreation

Developing a healthy lifestyle
Improving fitness
Increasing self-esteem
Interacting socially, especially in a team sport, but also through meeting people with interest in a similar individual sport
Enhancing self-discipline, perseverance and self-motivation
Experiencing a sense of achievement
Raising awareness of the variety of opportunities available in the area
Encouraging teamwork, if the activity is a team sport
Enjoyment

Adventurous Journey

The Adventurous Journey section encourages a sense of adventure and self-discovery while undertaking a journey within a group of peers. Working in a small group, all participants plan, train for and undertake a journey with a purpose, in an unfamiliar environment.

The opportunity to engage in adventurous and challenging activities in a new environment provides participants with the chance to learn more about their wider environment, including the impact that their and others’ activities can have. The opportunity also helps develop their self-confidence, health and fitness, teamwork, and leadership.

Benefits and outcomes of Adventurous Journey

Working as part of a team
Understanding group dynamics
Enhancing leadership skills
Improving planning and organization ability and attention to details
Learning to make real decisions and accept real consequences
A sense of achievement and satisfaction by overcoming challenges and obstacles
Developing self-reliance and independence
Developing health and fitness
Experiencing and appreciating the outdoor environment
Gaining the appropriate knowledge and skills to journey safely in that environment
Exercising imagination and creativity by choosing their own journey
Improving their investigating, reviewing and presentational skills

Gold Project

The Gold Project gives participants a shared, purposeful experience with people who are not their usual companions, working towards a common goal. It should be an experience that broadens the participant’s outlook and horizons.

Benefits and outcomes of the Gold Project

Meeting new people
Experiencing an unfamiliar environment
Building new relationships
Working as a team
Taking responsibility
Developing communication skills
Developing confidence
Showing initiative
Learning new skills or enhancing existing ones
Enjoying living and working with others

Award Outcomes

Confidence
Self-reliance, self-esteem, self-efficacy, capacity to act in one’s own interest
and need, self-belief and ability to shape your own life and the world around you.

Resilience and determination
Self-disciplined, self-management, self-motivated, focused, having a sense of
purpose, persistent, self-controlled etc.

Relationship and leadership
Motivating others, valuing and contributing to team working, negotiating,
establishing positive relationships, interpreting others, managing conflict,
empathizing etc.

Creativity and adaptability
Imagining alternative ways of doing things, applying learning in new contexts,
enterprising, innovating, remaining open to new ideas, reading situations
correctly and adapting as required.

Planning and problem solving
Navigating resources, organizing, setting and achieving goals; decisionmaking,
researching, analyzing, critical thinking, questioning and challenging,
evaluating risks, reliability.

Managing feelings
Reviewing, self-awareness, self-control, reflecting, self-regulating, selfaccepting
etc.

Communication
Explaining, expressing, presenting, listening, questioning, using different
ways of communicating.

Personal and social well-being
A person’s state of mind, relationship with the world around them and the
fulfilment they get from life: well-being, life satisfaction.

Civic competence
The ability and willingness to engage in active participation, based on an
attitude of trust in other people, in all the contexts of social life: school, local
community, working place, recreational activities.

Intercultural competence
Ability to operate in different cultural settings (of different ages, skills,
religions, languages, etc.) and adaptability to changing circumstances and
ability to sense and respond to new contexts.