Duke of Edinburgh Gold expedition with Explorers (scouts) - safe?

[Juicecharger]

Hi. My child is going to be doing his Gold DoE expedition with Explorers which is going to involve a week long canoe trip on a river. I'm aware the scouts/explorers is run by volunteers - do you think it's safe for them to be running this sort of expedition. A friend's son is doing his via a company that you pay (alot) for but who are specialist outwards bound people. Just wondering what people's thoughts/experiences are.

Just because they're volunteers doesn't mean they haven't done the relevant training - we spent loads getting our leaders accredited for various activities.

If you're worried though just ask what experience they have!

What exactly about the trip worries you? Where do you think the procedures are inadequate?

The DC will be doing the actual trip independently - if you're concerned, I suppose you could pay for extra training for your DC in the preparation phase.

Wow that sounds amazing! The scout canoeing permit is ridiculously hard to obtain, the qualifications required are high, as is the nights away permit. So the leaders will have had to give up huge amounts of their own time just to get the permits to lead this activity and will likely be more qualified than the outward bound centre leaders.

My DH has his climbing permit and he despairs at the poor safety skills and technique of outward bound centre leaders.

Thanks for the responses so far. That's very interesting. I guess I'm a bit concerned as in a previous day long expedition when the children were much younger, they were dropped in a forest with a map that they couldn't really read and got completely lost. In their attempts to find their way they ended up running across a very fast A road and eventually getting picked up in a car by a stranger who could see they were in trouble, and who took them to their destination. That could have been a total disaster and led me to worry about the training/knowledge of the staff.

I'm really scared of rivers having nearly been swept down one so the river aspect alone alarms me. That's my issue though.

If you are worried, don't do it. Use the more expensive company where the staff are paid.
I say this only if you are worried, I'd have happily trusted DS's scout troop to run something like this, they were amazing!

They will have to have produced a risk assessment to run this, and I'm sure they will give you a copy if you ask (politely).

When are they doing this? One of the parts of doing a Gold expedition are you have to have completed a training session/practice - "Teams must complete the required training and a practice expedition of a minimum 2 days, 2 nights." So that should be a taster of what the main expedition would look like.

The whole idea of a Gold expedition is going off into the wilds, by themselves, having planned the activity themselves. So while there will be supervision, by someone with responsibility for their safety, it will be remote supervision. So a responsible adult can assist them and review their plans, but what they are doing and responsibility for their equipment and everything will lie with the team themselves.

Sounds brilliant. The leaders need to have the correct permits to run this and the risk assessment is required to be made available to you.

I can understand your worries given what you say about a previous event. Without personal knowledge of the event it is of course not possible to pass judgement but it certainly sounds as though something went wrong and I would hope that learning was taken from that event.

Did they do their silver and bronze canoeing with the Scouts? Also what level of canoeing qualification does your child have? Part of the preparation for the expedition would normally be them doing British Canoe Union qualifications.

for context

I worked for an outdoor adventure company in my early 20's - I wasn't an instructor in charge (who did have permits) but did assist on activities. Now 20 years later I am a scout leader and I have had a lot more training from scouts on first aid, nights away permit, safeguarding, running activities than I did when i did it a s 'proper employed job'! obviously I am aware in 20 years rules and regulations will have changed so I cant attest to what training people have now.