{"alias":"blogEntry","byline":"","standfirst":"In his job interview to become a police officer, Scout volunteer Keyur Patel was asked about his skills and experiences \u2013 to cope under pressure, to work in a team, to be brave, to show empathy to those in difficult circumstances. Almost all of the examples he gave were examples of things he\u2019d learnt in Scouts. Here, Keyur tells us how Scouts helped him onto the road to his career.","content":{"layouts":[{"type":"singleColumn","areas":[{"items":[{"gridType":"gridImageBlock","gtmId":"gtmId","gtmClass":"gtmClass","image":"/media/5740/0_kiwi.jpg","width":615,"height":409,"altText":"","caption":"","link":null},{"gridType":"RichTextBlock","content":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EScouts saved my life\u003C/strong\u003E. I was involved in, I would never call it a gang when I was younger, I called it a group of mates, but unfortunately the group of mates did stuff on the other side of the law. They were just my friends that I hung out with but Scouts got me out of that life, helped me to choose something better.\u003C/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EI must have been around 8 years old\u003C/strong\u003E when my cousin introduced me to Scouts. He said he was going so why didn\u2019t I come along. I didn\u2019t know what it was but I went along anyway, and I loved it, I absolutely loved it. It was just for me, an environment where I could fit in. I was never an academic, never one of those academic bright sparks. I recently found out I\u2019ve got dyslexia, so perhaps that\u2019s why I didn\u2019t do as well at school as other people. But when you\u2019re young, you don\u2019t know that. All you know is fitting in.\u003C/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EI knew that I didn\u2019t fit in\u003C/strong\u003E with the clever crowd, I knew I didn\u2019t fit in with the sporty crowd, and so the other crowd I hung around with were the friends that bumped off school and smoked drugs and did all the silly stuff, but when I went to Scouts I found a place where I wasn\u2019t judged. It didn\u2019t matter whether I was clever or not, it didn\u2019t matter whether I was the sportiest person, what mattered was that I was part of a team.\u003C/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EWhen I talk to people about what Scouts can do\u003C/strong\u003E, we talk about skills for life and how these skills have changed our lives. When I was interviewed to become a police officer, two out of the three examples of the questions they asked were Scouts examples. When we talk about skills for life, it\u2019s not just some fluffy thing on the side of a billboard. It\u2019s not a pull-up poster that doesn\u2019t mean anything. For me, it means real life-changing stuff. It means actually using the skills that I\u2019ve gained in Scouts to become a police officer. Now those same skills have helped further my career, as I was recently promoted as a Police Sergeant.\u00A0\u003C/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EI volunteer because it\u2019s giving something back\u003C/strong\u003E. I got an incredible amount out of Scouts as a young person. That was the reason I became a leader. Today, because of my job I don\u2019t get to commit to weekly activities but I do a lot of work at County National level, I deliver drugs talks to young people and train new adult volunteers. I\u2019ve been on the training team for about 15 years. I\u0027ve also recently joined our National Inclusion Team as a National Volunteer Inclusion Manager, where I deliver talks around the UK to volunteers around Race Equity and how we can engage with underrepresented communities. I get an amazing buzz out of it, getting to impart knowledge and experience to the next generation of leaders who are going to use that stuff to help more young people. It\u2019s a great feeling.\u003C/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EWhen I was diagnosed with leukaemia\u003C/strong\u003E ten years ago, my friends in Scouts helped me through my diagnosis. I was overwhelmed with well wishes, support from friends and Scout colleagues across the County, who were just amazing. I think we\u2019re very lucky in terms of the Scout network we have.\u003C/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EScouts gave me confidence\u003C/strong\u003E to do talks about my cancer journey. I talk about the challenges I went through and I\u2019m able to do that because of Scouts. With my dyslexia I may not be an academic who can do spreadsheets or wordy stuff but I bring my passion to Scouts. I believe in Scouts. It\u2019s done so much for me.\u003C/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EI worked in the domestic violence unit previously\u003C/strong\u003E\u00A0for about four years and you have to have a huge amount of empathy for the people you deal with. You may have seen these victims for the fifth time, but you have to maintain empathy. I believe that I learnt that in Scouts. Part of it I think was in me, but the other part was because of Scouts.\u003C/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EScouts teaches empathy in lots of ways\u003C/strong\u003E. I explain this to the volunteers I train by talking about how when we take young people hiking we always encourage our young people to hike to the pace of the slowest person so the slowest person doesn\u2019t feel left out and the fastest person by default has to take it back a step. When they say \u2018why can\u2019t I just go ahead?\u2019 I\u2019m like \u2018well, if you\u2019re the fastest person, you\u2019re going to walk up, have a little rest while you wait for them to catch up but then those behind you never get a rest.\u2019 When you go on a hike in your Queen\u2019s Scout Award you start as a team and you finish as a team. What you\u2019re doing through this is very subtly allowing young people to understand what empathy looks like, allowing them to understand what teamwork looks like, how to work together, and to have courage.\u003C/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EWhen I translate these skills into my working life\u003C/strong\u003E, I know it takes courage going out and arresting a suspect who might have a knife on them, but where did I learn that courage from? Well, in Scouts it was about finding the inner strength to do abseiling or rock-climbing or caving when I was petrified! All these things you do in Scouts build up skills for life in you and so when a young person doesn\u2019t have that opportunity \u2013 school doesn\u2019t teach this to them \u2013 they don\u2019t get the chance to learn by doing. That\u2019s what Scouts does.\u003C/p\u003E","gtmId":"","gtmClass":""}]}],"config":null},{"type":"singleColumn","areas":[{"items":[]}],"config":null}]},"searchDescription":null,"pageType":null,"location":null,"versionDate":"02 March 2020","reviewDate":null,"furtherReading":[],"relatedLinks":[],"id":48498,"nodeName":"Scouts: the springboard to my career","title":"Scouts: the springboard to my career","type":"blogEntry","image":{"url":"/media/5740/0_kiwi.jpg?width=800\u0026height=450\u0026v=1d9becd0763e2a0","caption":"0 Kiwi","type":"jpg","size":49011,"width":615,"height":409,"altText":""},"assets":null,"headerOptions":{"headerTitle":"Scouts: the springboard to my career","headerSubTitle":null,"headerCta":null,"headerCtaText":null,"headerCtaLink":null,"headerBackgroundColour":null,"showSEOImage":false,"headerBackgroundImage":null,"quickLinks":null},"subHeader":"","browserTitle":null,"silktide":"eyJjbXMiOiJVbWJyYWNvIiwiZWRpdG9yVXJsIjoiaHR0cHM6Ly9wcm9kLWNtcy5zY291dHMub3JnLnVrLy91bWJyYWNvIy9jb250ZW50L2NvbnRlbnQvZWRpdC80ODQ5OCJ9","canonicalUrl":"https://www.scouts.org.uk/news/2020/march/scouts-the-springboard-to-my-career/"}