Ashley: Hi! I'm Ashley. I'm a Spark Guider with a background in education and I write programming for Girl Guides of Canada
Shea: My name is Shea I also write programming with Girl Guides of Canada. I have a background in mental health and a PhD in experiential and arts based learning.
So, thank you for sending us your questions about Girls First. Today we're here to talk about a big one: Program Requirements
By now you know that the new Girls First program has seven Areas of Program (Ash: AoPs) and 3 – 4 themes in each area. Girls First is about Girls taking the lead to explore the things that are most important to them. So, how do you build a program that has requirements but is flexible enough to allow Girls and units to explore their own interests and set their own goals?
Ashley: The solution? Simplify the program requirements. In Girls First, all seven AoPs are covered in each branch and each AoP has 3 – 4 possible themes. The girls choose a minimum of two themes. This amount of flexibility and agility gives the Girls voice in how the program comes together because there are tons of great topics in those themes to choose from.
Shea: So what does that look like? The Programming Committee reminded us that Guiders already have a great system in place to rotate through the program from year to year.
Ashley: For example: If you're leading a Brownie unit, you already use a 2 year rotation to get through the current program requirements. Girls First will work the same way. Since parts of the Guiding AoP are covered every year, by every branch, the other 6 AoPs are divided into a 2 year cycle for Sparks and Brownies (with 3 AoPs each year) and a 3 year cycle for Guides, Pathfinders and Rangers (with 2 AoPs each year).
Shea: So the amount of time spent in each AoP will be completely driven by the Girls own interests – how many themes they chose and the topics they want to explore. Guiders will balance this with how meetings run and how many meetings happen in a year.
Ashley: There are badges for each Area of Program AND each Theme. Once Girls have completed all the activities that were planned for a theme, they earn the theme badge. Earn two theme badges within an AoP and you've earned the AoP badge.
Shea: So this means, Girls have the potential to earn a minimum of 21 badges in each branch—including Rangers. And yes, these are actual, physical badges.
Ashley: If a Girl decides to complete the full program (all the themes within each Area of Program, from Sparks through to Rangers), she has the potential to earn over 150 badges in her guiding life!
Keep sending us your questions by email at girlsfirst@girlguides.ca