The Duke of Edinburgh Award
The Duke of Edinburgh Award (DofE) is a programme for young people that combines volunteering, skills development, physical activity and expeditions. These activities provide a unique opportunity for young people to discover new interests, make friends, increase their self-esteem, develop essential skills for life and work and have their lives transformed for the better. This programme will see autistic people, aged 14-24, working towards their DofE Bronze Award.
The programme will be geared towards meeting the specific needs of young autistic people, based off of a pilot which has taken place over the last 18 months, where the NAS oversaw autism-friendly DofE programme in North Northumberland and Cumbria and trialled the steps that need to be taken, so the Bronze Award can be completed by autistic participants in ways which meet their needs and skillsets. The group is now completing their gold award and have produced our DofE toolkit below.
To attain the Bronze Award, participants need to engage in activities from all the following categories: Physical, Skills, Volunteering and Expeditions. Some examples of the activities that can participate in within each section include:
- Physical: team and individual sports, fitness, martial arts, dance, or water sports.
- Skills: learning a language care of animals, music, games & recreation.
- Volunteering: community action, working with the environment, helping a local charity.
- Expedition: a team expedition planned and executed by the participants.
Learners will access DofE programmes for at around one hour per week, maybe more. They will all receive additional support provided by dedicated volunteers, in each session. A member of staff will be leading on the overall project, one volunteer being the lead on the programme for each branch. Volunteers will have support leading on activities and receive training from the DofE Award. They will be expected to volunteer several hours each week, co-ordinating the cohort of participants and ensuring all participants needs are met and everything is organised so those taking part derive the biggest impact possible from taking part in the programme. They will also be expected to help lead on activities, so would be able swimmers or have experience of the outdoors for example. As the programme will involve supporting potentially vulnerable people, it would also be required for volunteers to have an active DBS check.