Junior ranger toolkit

OUN­TRYSIDE RANGE SCOT­TISH ASSO­CI­ATION Scot­tish Nat­ur­al Her­it­age Dual­chas Nàdair na h‑Alba Juni­or Ranger Programme

Pro­gramme Co-ordin­at­ors’ Toolkit How to set up and run a suc­cess­ful Juni­or Ranger Pro­gramme and Award

CASE LOT­IN CAN­TER­BURY OF NEW ZEALAND

Con­tents Sec­tion Page Intro­duc­tion Juni­or Ranger Award Pro­gramme — the pro­cess 2 1 Intro­du­cing the Juni­or Ranger Award Pro­gramme 3 2 Intro­du­cing the Toolkit 4 3 Step by step set­ting up your Juni­or Ranger Pro­gramme 5 4 How the Award works – intro­du­cing the com­pet­en­cies 6 5 Get­ting organ­ised – admin­is­trat­ing your Pro­gramme, Factsheets and tem­plates, Gen­er­al Admin­is­tra­tion and Good Prac­tice 8 6 Recruit­ing and retain­ing young people and volun­teers 11 Appen­dices A Com­pet­en­cies A‑E for ini­tial Juni­or Ranger Award 14 B Com­pet­ency F — next level Award 16 C Com­pet­ency record sheet 17 D Example pro­gramme with sug­ges­ted com­pet­en­cies 18 E Con­nect­ing with the Cur­riculum for Excel­lence 19 F Sup­port for your pro­gramme – part­ners and fund­ing 21 G Links with oth­er Awards 22 H Co-ordinator’s diary and eval­u­ation 23 J Participant’s eval­u­ation form 29 K Feed­back as you go … please 30 Scot­tish Nat­ur­al Her­it­age Dual­chas Nàdair na h‑Alba SCRA acknow­ledges the fin­an­cial assist­ance and sup­port from SNH in the devel­op­ment of the Juni­or Ranger Pro­gramme. 1

2 Intro­duc­tion The key prin­ciples of this unique pro­gramme, run by the Scot­tish Coun­tryside Rangers’ Asso­ci­ation (SCRA) are that it: • Is delivered primar­ily by Coun­tryside Rangers in con­junc­tion with loc­al part­ners • Wel­comes all young people aged between 11 and 18 to take part in enjoy­able, inspir­a­tion­al and rel­ev­ant out­door learn­ing exper­i­ences • Provides oppor­tun­it­ies to devel­op trans­fer­able under­stand­ing, exper­i­ence and skills of the Ranger pro­fes­sion The Award is an integ­ral part of any Pro­gramme offered loc­ally and is gained by tak­ing part in a series of group activ­it­ies designed to deliv­er a num­ber of com­pet­en­cies reflect­ing the skills and know­ledge of those work­ing in the Ranger (or asso­ci­ated) pro­fes­sion. It is import­ant to note that the award is not a com­puls­ory ele­ment and that indi­vidu­al Juni­or Rangers determ­ine them­selves wheth­er they want to be entered for the award. To find out more — vis­it the SCRA web­site Scot­tish Coun­tryside Rangers are clearly at the heart of this Pro­gramme and it has been said they ‘…occupy a very spe­cial place in the public’s enjoy­ment and inter­pret­a­tion of Scotland’s land­scape.’ They deliv­er and sup­port envir­on­ment­al edu­ca­tion as well as many oth­er con­ser­va­tion, inter­pret­a­tion, access and main­ten­ance tasks in the coun­tryside. SCRA, Scot­tish Nat­ur­al Her­it­age and all the part­ners involved in devel­op­ing this Juni­or Ranger pro­gramme wish to encour­age more young people to take an act­ive interest in sus­tain­ing their envir­on­ment. By estab­lish­ing Juni­or Ranger groups, we can pro­mote the Ranger pro­fes­sion, provide oppor­tun­it­ies for young people to devel­op prac­tic­al envir­on­ment­al skills and, most import­antly, in an enjoy­able way, ensure they become respons­ible stew­ards of their plan­et. The SCRA Juni­or Ranger Pro­gramme is an out­door learn­ing pro­gramme and award for young people delivered by Coun­tryside Rangers, and oth­ers, in Scot­land SMILE Scot­tish Coun­tryside Rangers’ Association

1. Intro­du­cing the Juni­or Ranger Pro­gramme Who is the Pro­gramme aimed at? • All young people aged between 11 and 18 Those inter­ested in gain­ing the SCRA Juni­or Ranger Award Coun­tryside Ranger Ser­vices and oth­er out­door learn­ing pro­viders across Scot­land who wish to provide young people the oppor­tun­ity to learn about these pro­fes­sions How is the SCRA Juni­or Ranger Pro­gramme dif­fer­ent from oth­er envir­on­ment­al activ­ity pro­grammes for young people? • This is a nation­al pro­gramme delivered at a loc­al level Provides dir­ect involve­ment with a Coun­tryside Ranger Ser­vice and oth­er land man­agers Provides a first step on SCRA’s pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment jour­ney Leads to The Juni­or Ranger Award which recog­nises the young person’s com­mit­ment to their Ranger ser­vice and their achiev­ing com­pet­en­cies in a range of tasks Devel­ops skills and know­ledge for employ­ment in envir­on­ment­al con­ser­va­tion The par­ti­cipants take own­er­ship of their scheme and its activ­it­ies Those achiev­ing the Award can act as ment­ors to new­er Juni­or Rangers What is the time com­mit­ment? • Juni­or Ranger schemes will usu­ally take place about once a month, through­out the year, although there might be loc­al vari­ations It will take up to 12 months to gain the first level of the Award, for those wish­ing to par­ti­cip­ate • The Award can be taken to a second level once the ini­tial Award is gained What is the Juni­or Ranger Award and how is it achieved? The Juni­or Ranger Award is a key part of the SCRA Juni­or Ranger Pro­gramme As part of a loc­al Juni­or Ranger scheme young people will take part in a num­ber of out­door activ­it­ies over about 12 months Each of these activ­it­ies will reflect one or more com­pet­ency (see Appendix A) Par­ti­cipants will keep evid­ence of their involve­ment in a vari­ety of ways • These com­pet­en­cies are closely linked to those pur­sued by Rangers as part of their CPD pro­gramme • The evid­ence they col­lect will go towards an assess­ment The Award will be made on the sat­is­fact­ory com­ple­tion of five com­pet­en­cies Some schemes will offer a second level of the Award focus­sing on lead­er­ship What is SCRA’s role in admin­is­trat­ing the Award? Gen­er­al enquir­ies about the Juni­or Ranger Pro­gramme and Award Regis­ter­ing those organ­isa­tions and Ranger Ser­vices wish­ing to run a Juni­or Ranger scheme Advising if the pro­posed Pro­gramme matches the key prin­ciples of the Juni­or Ranger pro­gramme Sup­port­ing co-ordin­at­ors of Juni­or Ranger Pro­grammes Main­tain­ing records of poten­tial and cur­rent JR Pro­grammes (not indi­vidu­al par­ti­cipants) Listen­ing to your feed­back of your exper­i­ences of set­ting up and run­ning your Juni­or Ranger Pro­gramme Keep­ing the Toolkit and oth­er guid­ance and sup­port under reg­u­lar review Juni­or Ranger Award Scheme Co-ordinator’s Toolkit 3

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1. Intro­du­cing the Toolkit This Toolkit is designed to help YOU to find out as much about the SCRA Juni­or Ranger Pro­gramme as pos­sible. SCRA hope that the struc­ture of the Pro­gramme and Award will suit a wide range of organ­isa­tions wish­ing to provide out­door learn­ing oppor­tun­it­ies for young people. The Toolkit will help guide you through the steps needed to set up your loc­al Pro­gramme. SCRA encour­ages you to adapt the inform­a­tion in the Toolkit to your own prin­ciples and aims. This Toolkit should be regarded as a flex­ible doc­u­ment and will only work with input from the young people them­selves — please let SCRA know of any changes that would help those set­ting up a Pro­gramme. • Work­ing in part­ner­ship with exist­ing organ­isa­tions can have the bene­fit of admin­is­trat­ive sup­port and may help sim­pli­fy apply­ing for funds. Estab­lish­ing a pro-act­ive net­work of organ­isa­tions and groups with a sim­il­ar eth­os will help to main­tain focus, over­come chal­lenges and share good prac­tice. See the SCRA web­site. Scot­tish Coun­tryside Rangers’ Association

2. Step by Step – Set­ting up your Juni­or Ranger Pro­gramme Step Con­tact SCRA to register your interest in start­ing a Pro­gramme The aims of your Pro­gramme must reflect the key prin­ciples of the SCRA JR pro­gramme Look at Euro­parc Juni­or Ranger web­site The JR Pro­gramme should be part of your organ­isa­tions aims/​policies. Include your man­ager. The main con­tact/co-ordin­at­or is: Involved staff/​volunteers will be: Where to find out more Go to the SCRA web­site and register See page 2 Euro­parc web­site Your man­ager Name and con­tact details here: A Ranger Ser­vice or sim­il­ar organ­isa­tion endorsed by SCRA, should deliv­er Ranger Ser­vice part­ner a sig­ni­fic­ant part of the Pro­gramme and Award. What does the organ­ising group hope to get out of the Pro­gramme? The age range of the par­ti­cipants Num­ber of par­ti­cipants that will be able to take part Where we will recruit from and meth­ods we will use Where will the JRs meet? Do you have a base or will you use sev­er­al sites for activ­it­ies? Inform­a­tion required: Mem­ber­ship form Per­mis­sions Par­ent­al con­sent form Photo per­mis­sion 12 month pro­gramme of activ­it­ies The costs that we need to cov­er (e.g.): Trans­port Ven­ue Equipment/​uniform Activ­it­ies Volun­teer expenses We will fund our Pro­gramme by: Will there be a cost to the par­ti­cipants? What will be in your ​‘start-up’ pack for par­ti­cipants? e.g. item of kit, Award record book, Pro­gramme con­tact names and num­bers? (if not deliv­er­ing the Pro­gramme) See co-ordin­at­ors diary — Appendix H See Sec­tion 6 See SCRA web­site See page.21 Yes/​No To cov­er: How will your Pro­gramme be eval­u­ated? Juni­or Ranger Award Scheme Co-ordinator’s Toolkit 5

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1. How the Award works The Juni­or Ranger Award aims to be: • Attract­ive to young people Achiev­able by young people of dif­fer­ent abil­it­ies Work­able for Coun­tryside Rangers and those man­aging a vari­ety of sites and with dif­fer­ent work remits Access­ible to oth­er pro­fes­sion­als who work with young people Eas­ily assessed The assess­ing of this Com­pet­ency-based Award is based on pre-set com­pet­en­cies and the gath­er­ing of evid­ence in a vari­ety of ways. In order to show that someone is com­pet­ent at doing some­thing (the com­pet­en­cies) they have to DO IT. Those aim­ing for the Award are act­ively being asked to per­form a range of tasks linked to the com­pet­en­cies that make up the Award. S1 S2 S3 S4 Full Ranger Award Com­pet­en­cies Hab­it­at Man­age­ment Man­age­ment and Pro­ject Plan­ning Recre­ation and vis­it­or man­age­ment Ensur­ing site and eco­sys­tem integ­rity S5 Out­door learn­ing and inter­pret­a­tion S6 Com­munity and oth­er stake­hold­er engage­ment S7 Deliv­er­ing train­ing to oth­ers Juni­or Ranger Award Com­pet­en­cies A. Know your site B. Care for your site C. Care for vis­it­ors E. Work­ing with oth­ers D. Events and inter­pret­a­tion F. Lead­er­ship (second level) E. Work­ing with oth­ers F. Lead­er­ship (second level) The com­pet­en­cies for the SCRA Juni­or Ranger Award: Fur­ther details in Appen­dices A and B Know your site • Care for your site Care for vis­it­ors Events and Inter­pret­a­tion Work­ing with oth­ers Lead­er­ship (once com­pleted A‑E and for those over 14 years old) How Juni­or Ranger Com­pet­en­cies link to the found­a­tion level Ranger CPD Activ­it­ies and tasks the Juni­or Rangers might under­take Dur­ing the peri­od of the Pro­gramme the activ­it­ies on offer need to provide oppor­tun­it­ies for the par­ti­cipants to under­take a series of ​“com­pet­en­cies” which once assessed will lead to the Juni­or Ranger Award. These com­pet­en­cies are linked closely to the Found­a­tion Level Coun­tryside Rangers CPD. (See Table above) It is import­ant that all of the activ­it­ies are access­ible to young people of dif­fer­ent abil­it­ies. Those deliv­er­ing the Award will need to adapt activ­it­ies accord­ingly. This will influ­ence the type and meth­od of evid­ence col­lec­ted written/​verbal/​graphic. Scot­tish Coun­tryside Rangers’ Association

• Con­sider bring­ing in oth­er professionals/​organisations, or team up with anoth­er Juni­or Ranger group, to deliv­er activ­it­ies you are not set up for: e.g. fire ser­vice re emer­gency responses, ori­enteer­ing, and his­tor­ic­al top­ics See Appendix D for examples of how one pro­gramme of activ­it­ies delivered the neces­sary com­pet­en­cies Con­sider options avail­able to those turn­ing 18 – loc­ally and nation­ally. Appren­tice­ships, volun­teer­ing, ment­or­ing etc Evid­ence Can be obtained in a num­ber of ways use what suits the young per­son best, e.g. verbal, writ­ten, graph­ic, pho­to­graph­ic, etc Record sheets are avail­able to down­load from the SCRA web­site as a means for the Juni­or Rangers to keep a record of what they do The co-ordin­at­or, as well as the par­ti­cipant, may need to keep records of their achiev­ing each com­pet­ency Assess­ment • Young per­son to sub­mit com­pleted record book and port­fo­lio to Pro­gramme co-ordin­at­or Pro­gramme co-ordin­at­or to con­tact SCRA that they have can­did­ates for assess­ment SCRA to con­firm they are accept­ing applic­a­tions for assess­ment and inform how best to send the inform­a­tion to SCRA, provide times­cale of when decision will be made SCRA Juni­or Ranger sub-com­mit­tee/ex­tern­al veri­fi­er will con­sider the mater­i­al sub­mit­ted and make a decision with­in 6 weeks Juni­or Ranger Award Scheme Co-ordinator’s Toolkit 7

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1. Get organ­ised — gen­er­al factsheets and tem­plates The Juni­or Ranger Pro­gramme aims to be: Before work­ing with a group of young people a work­ing doc­u­ment on Health and Safety must be pro­duced. This can be based on gen­er­ic examples but must demon­strate that you have checked Health and Safety legis­la­tion rel­ev­ant to work­ing out­doors as well as show­ing that you will be work­ing with­in Pro­tec­tion of Vul­ner­able Groups guidelines. This reg­u­larly reviewed, and dated, doc­u­ment needs to be easy to read, well struc­tured and may refer to the source policies from the part­ner organ­isa­tions you are work­ing with. Some example tem­plates can be found as down­load­able doc­u­ments on the Juni­or Ranger pages of the SCRA web­site. All employ­ing organ­isa­tions should have their own ver­sion of the nation­al guidelines for out­door excur­sions. Youth Scot­land Youth Scot­land has a com­pre­hens­ive suite of tem­plates for policies and pro­ced­ures relat­ing to work­ing with young people in a safe, inclus­ive, well man­aged envir­on­ment. Becom­ing affil­i­ated to Youth Scot­land and adher­ing to these pro­ced­ures would also bring the bene­fit of being covered by their insur­ance policy and keep­ing up to date with youth work devel­op­ment, fund­ing and a vari­ety of train­ing oppor­tun­it­ies. More details can be found on the Youth Scot­land web­site. Aspects of Health & Safety which should be covered by your oper­a­tion­al procedures
2. Describe your Group/​Junior Coun­tryside Ranger, who is respons­ible for run­ning it, how are you insured?
3. Staff/​helpers — what ratios adult: young per­son do you work to, are they CRBS/PVG checked? Is there induc­tion training?
4. Risk man­age­ment and risk bene­fit assess­ment – who is respons­ible? What RAs are car­ried out? Think of the bene­fits first!
5. First Aid — who is respons­ible, who arranges train­ing, what kit is car­ried? Where is the Acci­dent Book kept? http://​www​.hse​.gov​.uk/​s​i​m​p​l​e​-​h​e​a​l​t​h​-​s​a​fety/
6. Acci­dent and Emer­gency pro­ced­ure – who to con­tact, who is respons­ible, what hap­pens to the rest of the group?
7. Can­cel­la­tion pro­ced­ure — under what weath­er con­di­tions, staff­ing ratio would you can­cel. How do you let people know?
8. Toi­let­ing pro­ced­ure — hygiene equip­ment, staff­ing role, leave no trace aspirations?
9. Parent/​carer consent
10. Use of photographs/​social media – per­mis­sions and where stored?
11. Tool / Fire use ratios, safe prac­tice pro­ced­ures, PPE require­ments, camp­fire cook­ing, food hygiene procedures
12. Lost Child or Miss­ing Par­ti­cipant Pro­ced­ure — how will you ensure every­one is with you, what will you do if someone is lost? Who car­ries mobile phone with good sig­nal? How long before dial­ling 999?
13. Trans­port — are par­ents deliv­er­ing and pick­ing up? If the group decides to use a minibus – is the driver qual­i­fied MIDAS cer­ti­fied or mature enough not to require it?
14. Equal Oppor­tun­it­ies statement

15. Do not for­get to include a sig­na­ture and annu­al review date Scot­tish Coun­tryside Rangers’ Association

16. Gen­er­al Admin­is­tra­tion and Good Prac­tice Ses­sion­al Oper­at­ing Procedure

17. What to do before the ses­sion Risk (bene­fit) assess­ment of site, activ­it­ies and par­ti­cipants Register — con­sent forms check, emer­gency con­tacts up to date… Staff­ing ratio — alloc­at­ing roles Equip­ment check
18. What to do dur­ing the ses­sion — ongo­ing RA, head counts
19. After the ses­sion — head count, trans­port check, tool check evaluate/​review and plan for next ses­sion Safe­guard­ing Chil­dren Procedure
20. Who is respons­ible on the day and on behalf of the group?
21. What to look for, how to listen to chil­dren and what not to say
22. What to report in the event of concerns
23. What hap­pens if staff or help­ers are accused? Con­fid­en­ti­al­ity Policy
24. Who/​where are records and registers stored
25. What inform­a­tion is car­ried taken out on site dur­ing ses­sions? Beha­viour / Anti-Bul­ly­ing Policy This is a good one for all par­ti­cipants to get involved in — the young people them­selves set­ting their Code of Con­duct, Beha­viour Bound­ar­ies, Rules. Import­ance of good Com­mu­nic­a­tion A draft Com­mu­nic­a­tion Plan has been drawn up with the set­ting up and run­ning of Juni­or Ranger scheme in mind. It can be found on the Juni­or Ranger pages of the SCRA web­site. Good prac­tice Examples of how the pilot Ranger Ser­vices approached the run­ning of their Pro­gramme can be found on the Juni­or Ranger pages of the SCRA web­site. More will be uploaded as they become avail­able. Juni­or Ranger Award Scheme Co-ordinator’s Toolkit JUNI­OR ANGER 9

10 5 Run­ning our scheme – check­list We shall arrange a pro­gramme of activ­it­ies over 6 – 12 months, prefer­ably in con­junc­tion with some of the par­ti­cipants cov­er­ing all the main com­pet­en­cies. We shall set up the best means of com­mu­nic­at­ing with — Juni­or Rangers, Volun­teers, Par­ents, and Part­ners. This may include sev­er­al meth­ods. The fol­low­ing can be involved in deliv­er­ing the activ­it­ies and organ­ising our Pro­gramme: Ranger Ser­vice Staff Co-ordin­at­ors, Volun­teers, Par­ents Part­ners e.g. We need trans­port for: Records we need to keep: e.g. Attendance/​register, per­mis­sion forms, risk/​benefit assess­ments, activ­ity pro­gramme, suc­cesses, sug­ges­tions for changes, costs/​income, acci­dent report­ing, evid­ence for com­pet­en­cies covered, plan­ning sheet for each meet­ing What back-up do we have if the co-ordin­at­or leaves or is off work? We need to determ­ine who is going to par­take in the award We need to provide a means of encour­aging reg­u­lar feed­back from the JRs and post­ing of pho­tos on own Face­book or SCRA Blog. How can our JR scheme link with oth­er Awards? What’s on offer to our JRs reach­ing 18? Example Pro­gramme Appendix D Appen­dices A,B Examples on SCRA Web­site See page 22, Appendix G Do we have an equal­it­ies and diversity action plan? Is your JR Pro­gramme writ­ten into your employer’s management/​business/​development plan? We shall mon­it­or our Pro­gramme and eval­u­ate its suc­cess Co-ordinator’s diary and eval­u­ation forms for par­ti­cipants and coordin­at­ors Appen­dices H&J We shall help the par­ti­cipants keep port­fo­li­os and records of their activ­it­ies and Per­son­al Record books achieve­ments We shall eval­u­ate the Pro­gramme to see if it is meet­ing the aims of the SCRA. see Appendix C Indi­vidu­al port­fo­li­os of evid­ence Scot­tish Coun­tryside Rangers’ Association

1. Recruit­ing and retain­ing young people and volun­teers Recruit­ing young people Main­tain­ing the interest of young people after the age of 11 is quite a chal­lenge and, for it to be suc­cess­ful, you need to have a large enough group of enthu­si­ast­ic par­ti­cipants to sus­tain core attend­ance. Var­ied strategies need to be deployed to ensure a sense of own­er­ship. Do you have a club or group of young­er chil­dren who might want to stay on? Make the most of any teacher/​school con­tacts you have and ask them dir­ectly if they have pupils who would bene­fit and enjoy a Juni­or Ranger group Link up with the loc­al youth group, Wild­life Explorers, RSPB Phoenix, Young Archae­olo­gists’ Club for spe­cif­ic pro­jects, then build on the rela­tion­ships cre­ated and new net­works iden­ti­fied Use the young peoples’ IT skills to set up safe social net­work­ing High­light the Award and the con­tri­bu­tion that being involved in a Juni­or Ranger scheme could make to oth­er Awards they are pur­su­ing. Young people them­selves will be the best sales per­sons — have the older mem­bers of your group vis­it the loc­al primary school to encour­age new recruits through joint ECO school, nature club, out­door learn­ing activ­it­ies Link in with trans­ition activ­it­ies Primary 7 — Sec­ond­ary 1 and short S2 cross cur­ricular courses, activ­ity weeks, ECO school groups Retain­ing young people Encour­age young people to plan a var­ied pro­gramme of activ­it­ies includ­ing the options of out­door recre­ation, camp­ing, bush­craft… Gauge the fre­quency of ses­sions and meet­ings care­fully Keep in touch with what the par­ti­cipants enjoy most and ensure there are oppor­tun­it­ies for flex­ib­il­ity and choice dur­ing ses­sions Estab­lish a ment­or­ing sys­tem, using Juni­or Rangers doing the lead­er­ship com­pet­ency Juni­or Ranger Award Scheme Co-ordinator’s Toolkit 11

12 Recruit­ing and retain­ing volun­teers Your volun­teers need to be inter­ested in and enjoy work­ing with young people and cap­able of inspir­ing oth­ers in their fields. It is a chal­lenge for all organ­isa­tions to sus­tain volun­teer sup­port and many strategies need to be used to encour­age people to give their time freely. Rely­ing on par­ent help­ers can some­times work when the group are young­er but once they reach sec­ond­ary school it is not some­thing the young people would choose. Here are some handy hints. Invite vol­un­tary Rangers or young people that have had pre­vi­ous involve­ment with your Ser­vice to lead, recruit and assist • Con­tact your loc­al volun­teer centre — see the Volun­teer Scot­land web­site Explore and main­tain links with indi­vidu­als in wider net­works school integ­rated learn­ing com­munit­ies on a loc­al level region­al biod­iversity officers Oth­er Coun­tryside Rangers Bio­lo­gic­al record­ing groups Nation­al organ­isa­tions – RSPB, Scot­tish Wild­life Trust, Green­space net­works, OWLS (FEI as was), Scot­tish Nat­ur­al Her­it­age, Scot­tish Envir­on­ment­al Pro­tec­tion Agency, youth devel­op­ment work­ers Identi­fy a pub­li­city per­son with skills, make links with loc­al media • Use safe social net­work­ing to recruit and share chal­lenges and suc­cesses Keep com­mu­nic­a­tions pos­it­ive, per­tin­ent and per­suas­ive, listen to what is not said as well as what is spoken Encour­age a wide vari­ety of vis­it­ing experts to share their skills • Have a large enough pool of lead­ers to ensure rota turns are few — know when to let folk step back for a spell Gauge the fre­quency of meet­ings and ses­sions sens­it­ively Ensure alloc­ated adult roles are appro­pri­ate to levels of enthu­si­asm, exper­i­ence, con­fid­ence and interest Scot­tish Coun­tryside Rangers’ Association

Appen­dices Forms in this sec­tion may be pho­to­copied as required. A Com­pet­en­cies A‑E for ini­tial Juni­or Ranger Award B Com­pet­ency F — next level Award C Com­pet­ency record sheet D Example pro­gramme with sug­ges­ted com­pet­en­cies E Con­nect­ing with the Cur­riculum for Excel­lence F Sup­port for your Pro­gramme — part­ners and fund­ing G Links with oth­er Awards H Co-ordinator’s diary and eval­u­ation J Participant’s eval­u­ation form K Feed­back as you go Juni­or Ranger Award Scheme Co-ordinator’s Toolkit 13

14 Appendix A Com­pet­en­cies for first level Juni­or Ranger Award Com­pet­en­cies A‑E are com­puls­ory for every­one doing the Award Com­pet­ency F is avail­able to those aged 14 – 18 once they have gained the ini­tial Juni­or Ranger Award (see Appendix B) The activ­it­ies and tasks are only sug­ges­tions — each Pro­gramme may devel­op their own range of activ­it­ies to cov­er the com­pet­en­cies Evid­ence can be col­lec­ted in a num­ber of ways, as best suits the can­did­ate (for example using images, or the SCRA Record Book) Assess­ment will be car­ried out based on the evid­ence recor­ded by both the can­did­ate and Pro­gramme co- ordin­at­or • All evid­ence will need to be sub­mit­ted to SCRA for final assessment/​verification RANGE SER­VICE S F LR Scot­tish Coun­tryside Rangers’ Association

Com­pet­en­cies Example activities/​beha­viours Example task Example Evid­ence A Know your site A1 Devel­op know­ledge of key fea­tures of your site A1.1 Research the key fea­tures of your site e.g. old/​new maps, books, web, audio etc Cor­rectly identi­fy species/​features/​A2 Con­duct a site sur­vey A2.1 issues A2.2 Accur­ately use a record­ing tech­nique Sur­vey e.g. wildlife/​habitat / archaeology/​visitors etc Take part in a ​‘cit­izen sci­ence’ activ­ity Map of fea­tures or display/​leaflet or verbal feed­back or new sur­vey record­ing sheet Com­pleted sur­vey record­ing sheets B Care for your site B1 Carry out a prac­tic­al task B1.1 B1.2 C Care for vis­it­ors C1 Show an under­stand­ing of loc­al access issues C1.1 (includ­ing SOAC) C2 Use of basic nav­ig­a­tion skills C2.1 Prac­tic­al man­age­ment technique(s) Appro­pri­ate and safe use of tools Prac­tic­al task e.g. hab­it­at man­age­ment, foot­path main­ten­ance and repair, archae­ology Obser­va­tion with check­list Cor­rectly advise on a loc­al access issue, based on SOAC Give verbal advice for dif­fer­ent scen­ari­os Nav­ig­ate suc­cess­fully in Com­plete a way­far­ing / the out­doors ori­ent­a­tion course Obser­va­tion Com­pleted course and/​or doc­u­ment­ary evid­ence e.g. cer­ti­fic­ate Obser­va­tion or First Aid qual­i­fic­a­tion C3 Assist in deal­ing with an emer­gency situ­ation, includ­ing basic First Aid C3.1 Care of self and oth­ers First Aid ​‘incid­ent’ C3.2 C3.3 Basic First Aid Identi­fy sources of fur­ther help/​emer­gency ser­vices D Events and Inter­pret­a­tion D1 Assist in a CRS activity/​event/​display for the pub­lic D1.1 Carry out duties, as reques­ted D1.2 Use rel­ev­ant and pos­it­ive com­mu­nic­a­tion skills/​tech­niques Activity/​event e.g. help­ing people, pub­li­city, dis­play, web etc Obser­va­tion Obser­va­tion with check­list E Work­ing with oth­ers E1 Cre­ate pos­it­ive work­ing rela­tion­ships with oth­ers E1.1 Be polite and help­ful to Applic­able to all JR oth­ers E1.2 Show that you listen activ­it­ies Obser­va­tion with check­list E1.3 Acknow­ledge oth­ers con­tri­bu­tion E1.4 Be reli­able E1.5 Treat all col­leagues and mem­bers of the pub­lic equally Juni­or Ranger Award Scheme Co-ordinator’s Toolkit 15

16 Appendix B Com­pet­ency F F Com­pet­en­cies Lead­er­ship Example activities/​beha­viours Example task Example Evid­ence This com­pet­ency is only avail­able to those aged 14 – 18 once they have gained the ini­tial Juni­or Ranger Award F1 Apply effect­ive lead­er­ship skills F1.1 Man­age resources safely and effect­ively F1.2 Give clear instruc­tions F1.3 F1.4 Focus on pos­it­ive exper­i­ence for group more than self Identi­fy what worked well and what could be improved for self, as lead­er and activ­ity Assist in lead­ing an Obser­va­tion with activity/​task or part of an check­list activity/​task In order to com­plete Com­pet­ency F, Juni­or Rangers need to demon­strate the fol­low­ing F1.1 Man­age resources safely and effect­ively • Plan the task in terms of time, trans­port, tools, costs, staff, ratios, RA’s, advert­ising, book­ing, weath­er Talk with teacher/​Group lead­er before vis­it to know their outcomes/​expectations Intro­duce the task to those who are involved (teachers/​other staff members/​helpers) and give a brief out­line of your expect­a­tions F1.2 Give clear instruc­tions Explain task clearly Ensure the whole group can hear you — con­sider loc­a­tion of intro­duct­ory talk, wind, sun­shine etc • Give tools talk where neces­sary Eye con­tact Give oppor­tun­ity for ques­tions Give explan­a­tions where neces­sary Give pitch rel­ev­ant to group/​abilities F1.3 Focus on pos­it­ive exper­i­ence for group more than self Smile! Be happy! Be approach­able Con­sider the var­ied interests and ages of the group and ensure all are covered where pos­sible Con­sider what they would like to get out of the vis­it – just being outdoors/​working with tools/​learning about wild­life — all? Be pre­pared to change tack if group don’t seem inter­ested — have some­thing else up your sleeve Have a plan B! What would you do if it was too windy, rain­ing etc? Get feed­back F1.4 Identi­fy what worked well and what could be improved for self, as lead­er and activ­ity Com­plete task eval­u­ation form and look at the feed­back • Assess what worked and what didn’t and why, what could be changed for future tasks in terms of group dynam­ics, lead­er­ship, task, site loc­a­tion etc Scot­tish Coun­tryside Rangers’ Association

Appendix C Com­pet­ency Record Sheet (example) Par­ti­cipant Name Com­pet­ency being assessed (Please give name and code) Evid­ence that com­pet­ence has been achieved Signed: Signed: Signed: Juni­or Ranger Award Scheme Co-ordinator’s Toolkit Date: Date: Date: 17

18 Appendix D Juni­or Ranger pro­gramme (example with sug­ges­ted com­pet­en­cies) Ses­sion Activ­ity Com­pet­ency 1 Big Garden Bird Watch A1, A2, E1 2 3 Joint JR ses­sion at Barns Ness, Dun­bar Badger Sur­vey B1, E1 A1, A2, E1 4 Bench work B1, E1 5 Prac­tic­al con­ser­va­tion work B1, E1 6 Assist at RSPB Bird Fair D1, E1 7 Guid­ing C1, C2, D1, E1 8 Bumble­bee Survey/​Citizen Sci­ence A1, A2, E1 9 Prac­tic­al con­ser­va­tion work B1, E1 10 Bal­sam Bash­ing B1, E1 11 Sea­son­al chal­lenge — ori­enteer­ing? A1, C1, C2 12 Fun with fungi A1, C1, C2 13 Bon­fire and saus­age sizzle B1, E1 14 Christ­mas crafts E1 Scot­tish Coun­tryside Rangers’ Association

Appendix E Con­nect­ing in with the Cur­riculum for Excel­lence This is the school cur­riculum the major­ity of 3 – 18 year olds fol­low in Scot­land. The pur­pose of the Cur­riculum is sum­mar­ised in the dia­gram on page 20, in which the four capa­cit­ies are linked with vari­ous ele­ments of the Juni­or Ranger pro­gramme. The Cur­riculum aims to ensure that all chil­dren and young people in Scot­land devel­op the know­ledge, skills and attrib­utes they will need if they are to flour­ish in life, learn­ing and work, now and in the future. The Edu­ca­tion Scot­land web­site link provides details of how the Cur­riculum works and all the set ​“exper­i­ences and out­comes” in each sub­ject area. If you are involved with schools in any way this is well worth look­ing at. Of par­tic­u­lar value are two sec­tions of ​‘Out­door Learn­ing: Prac­tic­al guid­ance, ideas and sup­port for teach­ers and prac­ti­tion­ers in Scot­land’ Sec­tion 5 Places to Learn Out­doors: Using the Loc­al Area and Sec­tion 8 CPD Frame­work and Plan­ning Tools. There is a strong com­mit­ment from Edu­ca­tion Scot­land for ​“Com­munity Learn­ing and Devel­op­ment” which emphas­ises the pos­it­ive impact on the com­munity and all the stake­hold­ers with­in it of all ages work­ing togeth­er and build­ing com­munity capa­city by doing so. Juni­or Rangers could be an import­ant cog in the mech­an­ics of this pro­cess by volun­teer­ing with­in the com­munity, being appre­ci­ated as respons­ible cit­izens. Feed­back from sev­er­al school staff involved in the pilot Juni­or Ranger Pro­grammes indic­ates there is strong interest in schools offer­ing a scheme in con­junc­tion with their loc­al Ranger Ser­vice. Teach­ers (and hope­fully pupils too) have scope to decide what to study. Schools are being encour­aged to do their own thing, using people and places in their loc­al area, or the indi­vidu­al interests of classes and pupils to choose top­ics to focus on. The idea is that this will make les­sons more rel­ev­ant and there­fore more reward­ing for chil­dren. One of the three key areas for learn­ing is ​“Health and well­being” in which some ele­ments of the Juni­or Ranger Pro­gramme can help young people: devel­op the know­ledge and under­stand­ing, skills, cap­ab­il­it­ies and attrib­utes which they need for men­tal, emo­tion­al, social and phys­ic­al well­being now and in the future. make informed decisions in order to improve their men­tal, emo­tion­al, social and phys­ic­al well­being exper­i­ence chal­lenge and enjoy­ment exper­i­ence pos­it­ive aspects of healthy liv­ing and activ­ity for them­selves apply their men­tal, emo­tion­al, social and phys­ic­al skills to pur­sue a healthy life­style estab­lish a pat­tern of health and well­being which will be sus­tained into adult life, and which will help to pro­mote the health and well­being of the next gen­er­a­tion of Scot­tish chil­dren Oth­er sub­ject areas that over­lap with some of the com­pet­en­cies of the Award include — sci­ence, social sci­ences, tech­no­logy and tech­no­lo­gies. Juni­or Ranger Award Scheme Co-ordinator’s Toolkit 19

20 I Feel able to make sug­ges­tions | Par­ti­cip­ate in new activ­it­ies with new people | Choose to have a health­i­er life­style | Research and organ­ise own trans­port to site | Demon­strate prior/​new skills, know­ledge to oth­ers | Carry out risk bene­fit analysis

• inform/​advise | Demon­strate focus and ambi­tion I Identi­fy and achieve new cross- cur­ricular skills includ­ing lit­er­acy and numer­acy, link­ing these to new out­door activ­it­ies | Use tech­no­logy to build up evid­ence of learn­ing | Devel­op prac­tic­al skills using tools in the out­door work­place | Achieve rel­ev­ant accred­it­a­tion SQA units — Skills for Work, Core Skills, AH pro­jects | Duke of Edin­urgh, John Muir, HSE cert | Review, eval­u­ate and reflect on achieve­ment reg­u­larly Con­fid­ent Indi­vidu­als Suc­cess­ful Learners Juni­or Rangers and the Cur­riculum for… Effect­ive Con­trib­ut­ors Respons­ible Cit­izens | Work will­ingly with­in group and also inde­pend­ently | Com­mu­nic­ate using phone, video, present­a­tion | Devel­op appro­pri­ate vocab­u­lary | Improve listen­ing skills | Take ini­ti­at­ive in solv­ing prob­lems | Encour­age oth­ers to sus­tain effort I Inform staff when unable to attend or if late | Carry our riskbe­ne­fit ana­lys­is inform oth­ers | Take part in conservation/​main­ten­ance tasks | Assist/​volunteer with oth­er groups help lead | Help with set­ting out and clear­ing up after­wards | Main­tain respect for oth­ers and the envir­on­ment Scot­tish Coun­tryside Rangers’ Association

Appendix F Sup­port for your scheme – part­ners and fund­ing Costs involved with set­ting up and run­ning your Pro­gramme The Pilot Pro­grammes spent avail­able money on: Trans­port (e.g. hire of minibus) Activities/​professional ser­vices Shar­ing events with oth­er pilot JR groups Refresh­ments Tools and Equip­ment Pro­mo­tion and Pub­li­city Uniform/​badges Con­tin­gency @ 10% Income If it is neces­sary, fund­ing your Juni­or Ranger Pro­gramme can be approached in a vari­ety of ways.

1. Par­ti­cipants can raise funds them­selves or pay an annu­al fee to cov­er costs. One of the Pilot Pro­jects charged a join­ing fee of £25 per par­ti­cipant. Pos­it­ive media cov­er­age and part­ner­ship fund­ing applic­a­tions are use­ful intro­duct­ory tools when ask­ing for support.
2. Loc­ally tar­geted sources busi­nesses needing/​seeking green cre­den­tials busi­nesses with links to out­door pur­suits, wild­life tour­ism loc­al author­ity spe­cif­ic envir­on­ment­al fund Youth pro­ject fund – coun­cil­lors’ dis­cre­tion­ary budget (though this may change with present Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment) Part­ner­ship place­ments for young people (vul­ner­able 16 – 19 year olds) who are eli­gible for Activ­ity Agree­ments http://​www​.scot​land​.gov​.uk/​T​o​p​i​c​s​/​E​d​u​c​a​t​i​o​n​/​e​d​a​n​d​t​r​a​i​n​i​n​g​f​o​r​y​o​u​n​g​p​l​e​/​1​6​p​l​u​s​l​c​/​a​c​t​i​v​i​t​y​a​g​r​e​e​ments Some Nation­al fund­ing inform­a­tion and sources, cor­rect as of March 2015 http://​www​.youth​scot​land​.org​.uk/​n​e​w​s​/​f​u​n​d​i​n​g​-​n​e​w​s.htm http://​www​.Awardsfor​all​.org​.uk/​s​c​o​t​land/ http://​www​.hlf​.org​.uk/​h​o​w​t​o​a​p​p​l​y​/​P​a​g​e​s​/​s​t​a​r​t​h​e​r​e​.aspx http://​www​.biglot​tery​fund​.org​.uk/ http://​www​.forestry​.gov​.uk/​f​o​r​e​s​t​r​y​/​I​N​F​D​-​7​EPEED http://​ccf​.keep​scot​land​beau​ti​ful​.org/​h​o​w​t​o​a​p​p​l​y​.aspx http://​www​.snh​.gov​.uk/ Pilot Pro­jct Con­tacts For up to date con­tacts witht the pilot pro­grammes, see the Juni­or Ranger Sec­tion of the SCRA web­site. Juni­or Ranger Award Scheme Co-ordinator’s Toolkit 21

22 Appendix G Links with oth­er Awards The new skills young people involved in Juni­or Ranger groups can gain include soft skills, devel­op­ing social and per­son­al con­fid­ence in dif­fer­ent situ­ations, being able to pass on their envir­on­ment­al know­ledge, share exper­i­ences, achieve Awards and new lead­er­ship goals all of which meet Cur­riculum for Excel­lence pri­or­it­ies and add depth to CVs. For up to date inform­a­tion on all poten­tial Awards and accred­it­a­tion, access the Awards Net­work web­site, www​.award​snet​work​.org Queen’s Scout/​Guide Awards John Muir Award Youth Achieve­ment Award Mil­leni­um Volunteer/​Saltire Award JUNI­OR RANGER SCHEME Duke of Edin­burgh Award Young Qual­ity Scot Award ASDAN Short Courses/​Com­munity Volun­teer­ing Qual­i­fic­a­tion SQA Per­son­al Devel­op­ment, Leadear­ship, Employ­ab­il­ity Awards Dynam­ic Youth Award The Euro­parc Federation’s Juni­or Ranger pro­gramme is a great way of mak­ing con­nec­tions with Juni­or Rangers in pro­tec­ted areas across Europe. An annu­al camp, hos­ted by one of its mem­bers, is an unmiss­able oppor­tun­ity for young people to get togeth­er, have fun, and learn about Europe’s biod­iversity. Euro­parc also facil­it­ates twin­ning of Juni­or Ranger groups. www. euro​parc​.org/​n​a​t​u​r​e​/​y​o​u​n​g​-​p​e​o​p​l​e​/​j​u​n​i​o​r​-​r​a​n​g​e​r​-​p​r​o​g​ramme Euro­parc Juni­or Ranger Face­book ASDAN = Award Scheme Devel­op­ment and Accred­it­a­tion Net­work — no longer seen as a rel­ev­ant name. Scot­tish Coun­tryside Rangers’ Association

Appendix H Co-ordinator’s Sug­ges­ted Eval­u­ation Form Scot­tish Coun­tryside Rangers’ Asso­ci­ation Juni­or Ranger Pro­gramme Your name Your Job Title Role Ranger Ser­vice/Co-ordin­at­ing group Juni­or Ranger Scheme start and fin­ish dates Please take the time to com­plete this form as fully as pos­sible: your feed­back will provide evid­ence of Juni­or Ranger Pro­gramme out­comes and help SCRA improve the qual­ity of the Juni­or Ranger programme.

1. Please tell us the extent to which you have observed changes in the Juni­or Rangers’ abil­it­ies in the fol­low­ing areas: Sig­ni­fic­ant increase Slight increase No Slight Sig­ni­fic­ant change decrease decrease Abil­ity a Passing on know­ledge of their site b Using a record­ing tech­nique C Car­ry­ing out of prac­tic­al tasks d Advising on The Scot­tish Out­door Access Code (SOAC) e Nav­ig­at­ing suc­cess­fully out of doors f Assist­ing in deal­ing with an emer­gency g Using appro­pri­ate means of com­mu­nic­a­tion with the pub­lic and oth­ers h Being polite and help­ful i Apply­ing effect­ive lead­er­ship skills
2. Please tell us to what extent you have observed changes in the Juni­or Rangers’ atti­tudes and aware­ness in the fol­low­ing areas: Abil­ity a b C d e Aware­ness of their skills and strengths Aware­ness of the areas in which they need to devel­op Belief in their abil­ity to reach their goals Determ­in­a­tion to achieve their goals Will­ing­ness to try new exper­i­ences Sig­ni­fic­ant Slight increase increase No Slight Sig­ni­fic­ant change decrease decrease Juni­or Ranger Award Scheme Co-ordinator’s Toolkit 23

24

1. Learn­ing about the nat­ur­al and cul­tur­al envir­on­ment. Please