Promoting a Young Person to a Role

As a young person grows through Scouting — from Explorer to Young Leader, on to Network and then a full Volunteer — you often want to give them their own login. Until now that meant creating a brand-new account from scratch, which left all their badges, awards and attendance stranded on their old member record. Promoting them keeps everything in one place: they gain the role you choose, and their whole history stays on the same record.

Where to find this#

Go to Settings → Users, then click Add user. You'll be asked how you'd like to give someone access:

• Invite someone new — the usual invite for someone who isn't a member.
• Make an Explorer a Young Leader — a shorter version of this flow for Young Leaders only. See Adding a Young Leader to Scoutworks.
• Promote an existing young person — give a member who's already in your group a login with one or more roles.

Choose Promote an existing young person to start. If you're only adding a Young Leader, the shorter option skips the role step.

Promoting is open to Volunteers and group admins, and the group needs an active subscription.

The roles you can give#

You can give someone more than one role at once, and the roles you pick are added on top of what they already have — nothing is taken away. Which roles are offered depends on their age, worked out from their date of birth.

Network is a role for 18–24 year olds who are still working towards their top awards — like a King's Scout Award, DofE Gold or the Explorer Belt — while also able to take on adult responsibilities.

Roles the person isn't old enough for are shown greyed out with a short reason. If there's no date of birth on their record, you'll see a gentle warning — you can still promote them, but you'll be asked to check they're eligible yourself.

Promoting someone, step by step#

1. Pick the young person. Search your members and choose who you're promoting.
2. Enter their email address. This is the address they'll use to set up and sign in to their own login. Use their own email — don't reuse someone else's.
3. Choose one or more roles. Only the roles they're eligible for can be ticked.
4. Fill in the details for the roles you chose (this step only appears when it's needed — see below).
5. Review and confirm. Check the summary, then promote.

Once you confirm, they're sent an email inviting them to set up their login. If they already have an active login, no email is sent — the role is simply added (more on that below).

Volunteer sections#

If you give someone a Young Leader role, you'll be asked which sections they help in. Pick the younger sections they volunteer with — their own section is kept separate.

Safeguarding confirmation for adult roles#

Before an adult role (Volunteer, Group Admin or Trustee) takes effect, you'll be asked to tick a box confirming that the right checks — such as an in-date DBS — are in place for that person. This is a quick confirmation to make sure adult roles aren't switched on by accident; it isn't a vetting record in itself.

Keeping or ending youth membership#

What happens to their place as a young person depends on the role:

• Young Leader and Network keep their active youth membership — they'll appear in both your member list and your team.
• Volunteer, Group Admin and Trustee ask whether to end their youth membership, since they've usually moved on from their section. This is set to end it by default, but you can keep it.

Either way, their member record is always kept — ending a youth membership never deletes anything.

What carries across#

Promoting someone never duplicates them. Their badges, awards, attendance and full programme history stay exactly where they are, on the same record, and remain visible through their account.

Their name and safety information — medical details, dietary requirements and emergency contact — are copied across to fill any blanks on their new login. Anything already on their account is left as it is, so nothing you've entered before gets overwritten. The review step shows you exactly which details will be carried over before you confirm.

If they already have an account#

Some people already have a login — a parent in your group, or a volunteer who helps at another group. When you enter an email that already has an account, Scoutworks links to that existing account and adds the new role to it, rather than creating a second, duplicate person. You'll see a note telling you this on the role step, so you always know which is happening. If that account hasn't been activated yet — say a parent who was added but never set a password — they'll still get an email to finish setting it up.

What's next#

• Adding a Young Leader to Scoutworks — the quickest way to add a Young Leader, and what they can do.
• Managing Users and Roles — inviting leaders, admins and trustees, and managing your full user list.
• Understanding Roles and Permissions — a full breakdown of what each role can access.