How to help girls take charge
As a volunteer, you can empower girls to lead
At Girlguiding, we’re all about building girls’ confidence. We know from our research that girls of all ages often struggle to have confidence in their appearance, their skills, their abilities. We also know that girls are much more likely to feel confident when they also feel listened to, welcomed, and able to be themselves.
So what can we actually do to help girls to feel those things?
One big thing you can do is empower girls to take the lead in unit meetings. Asking girls what they’d like to do in units, or to organise and lead activities, has loads of benefits. And it’s a great way for all of us to make sure that girl’s voices are included at every level in Girlguiding. One way we’re doing this at HQ is with the new youth steering group, which will allow girls to directly feedback on the projects Girlguiding does.
But we know that helping girls take the lead takes time and effort. It can be hard to find opportunities for independence along with all your other unit planning, getting the right number of Theme award hours, and making sure your meetings are fun for everyone.
So here’s some suggestions for how to start factoring girl’s taking more of a lead into your planning, including some tips from other volunteers.
1. Include at least one girl-led session in your planning for every term
If you’ve planned it in, and everyone’s aware that it’s coming up, it will be much easier to get everyone on board. If you make this a later session in the term, girls will have time to think about it, and plan what they’d like to do.
Here’s some ways to make it happen:
Get everyone involved, regardless of their confidence level
Not every girl will be up for running an activity, but they might have ideas on what activities they’d like to do. You could have a pot of activity ideas from the beginning of term that girls can contribute to. If they need a bit more of a steer, you could lay out your programme activities for girls to choose from. You can flag any special considerations, such as the time each activity takes, and whether they’ll need to adapt the meeting space at all. This is also a great way to top up your activity hours if girls are working towards a particular theme award, while also giving them a choice.
‘This term we're trialling getting each patrol to run a UMA for the rest of the unit – with leader support. We’re hoping this will give them the confidence to speak in front of the whole unit, work together as a team, and change the way the Guides listen to each other in the unit setting.’ - Tasha, volunteer
Ask girls to volunteer to lead the actual session
If they’re not sure how to get started, make it clear who is responsible for time-keeping, giving instructions during the activity, and preparing any materials that are needed in advance. You could even give them a budget for what they’re allowed to spend.
Make it fun
Take time to recognize how everyone contributed after the session, whether they contributed to a brainstorm or led a whole activity. Consider awarding ‘I’ve taken the lead’ badges to girls who really shine!
2. Look out for opportunities in the term to boost girls’ confidence
Confidence to take the lead isn’t something all of us are born with. For most of us, it takes time. Help girls see that they can do it, with some of these confidence-boosting tips.
Model it for the girls
We’ve all had things go wrong in a unit meeting before! If something goes wrong, laugh it off with the girls, and show them that it’s no big deal.
Give them some responsibility
Encourage girls to help you out setting up activities, cleaning up, and looking out for each other. Even if it feels like a task, it’s a great way to show young people that they can make a valuable contribution, and it can be hugely empowering.
Share the praise
Take five minutes at the end of every meeting to shout out girls who did something really well, or showed some amazing skills. Hearing praise from your peers can also be a huge confidence-boost at any age. In your shout-out sessions, ask girls to nominate someone from the group that they think did a great job in the unit meeting today. Maybe they were kind to someone else in the group, helped out, or had a great idea.
'One way we help my Brownies take charge is for each six to have a turn running the meeting. They spend a couple of weeks planning what they’re going to do and let us know anything we need to provide.
'It’s really good at empowering them to make decisions, and because they work as a team the girls who aren’t so confident leading can give their input during the planning and don’t have to take the lead on the night if they’re not comfortable with it.’ - Emma, volunteer
3. Use our programme and other resources
Our programme is all about letting girls take ownership, and having confidence in their choices. But how can we balance being encouraging and helpful, without telling girls exactly what to do? There are lots of ways our programme can help girls practice taking the lead:
Try out some interest badges
These are all about independence, as girls choose which badges they want to do. But sometimes without instructions, a lot of girls just don’t know where to start. We’ve heard from volunteers that often the motivation to complete an interest badge starts from a conversation in a unit meeting. Try asking girls in an open conversation at the beginning of term what they think of the badges, and if they’re keen to try any out. You could even have a badge-busting session for anyone who’s got stuck, where girls in the group can help each other by suggesting ideas and things to try.
Try activities from the Lead skills builder
You’ve probably already thought of this one, but it’s worth a mention! With the Lead skills builder, girls of all ages can try out activities that help them develop leadership skills and understand what it means to be a leader.
Get them involved with more of your essential unit work
Did you know that we have new resources to help young people make guiding A Safe Space? We have activity sheets for ages 10-17, to help young volunteers take a more active role in things like risk assessments and safeguarding.
Finally, remember to embrace the chaos! If things go wrong when they take control, the girls will still have fun and learn something. You don’t need to worry that you need to ‘catch’ them every time. Allowing young people to fail and learn from it is one of the best ways to build up their resilience and confidence. And it makes unit meetings the lively, messy, safe space that we all love!
'At Rainbows we always ask the girls to choose which games to play and often encourage them to run these themselves. We also tend to pair up new Rainbows with a girl that’s been with us for a while and encourage her to explain what we do, introduce her to the other girls, and act as a buddy while she settles in.
'It’s really nice to see how proud the girls feel when they’ve been trusted to take on that role.’ - Emma, volunteer
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