What is Venturing?

The Purpose Of Venturing

Venturing is a youth development program of the Boy Scouts of America for young men and women who are 14 (and have completed the eighth grade) through 20 years of age.

Venturing's purpose is to provide positive experiences to help young people mature and to prepare them to become responsible and caring adults.

Venturing is based on a unique and dynamic relationship between youth, adult leaders, and organizations in their communities. Local community organizations establish a Venturing crew by matching their people and program resources to the interests of young people in the community. The result is a program of exciting and meaningful activities that helps youth pursue their special interests, grow, develop leadership skills, and become good citizens.

Goals

Young adults involved in Venturing will:

• Learn to make ethical choices over their lifetimes by instilling the values in the Scout Oath and Scout Law.
• Experience a program that is fun and full of challenge and adventure.
• Become a skilled training and program resource for Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts and other groups.
• Acquire skills in the areas of high adventure, sports, arts and hobbies, religious life, or Sea Scouting.
• Experience positive leadership from adult and youth leaders and be given opportunities to take on leadership roles.
• Have a chance to learn and grow in a supportive, caring, and fun environment.

Ethics in Action

An important goal of Venturing is to help young adults be responsible and caring people, both now and in the future. Venturing uses "ethical controversies" to help young adults develop the ability to make responsible choices that reflect their concern for what is a risk and how it will affect others involved. Because an ethical controversy is a problem-solving situation, leaders expect young adults to employ empathy, invention, and selection when they think through their position and work toward a solution of an ethical controversy.

Methods

The Venturing program emphasizes four main areas known as the A-L-P-S model:

• Adventure - Mentoring, leading, and participating in crew-led adventures.
• Leadership - Ongoing leadership development through training, mentoring, and hands-on leadership.
• Personal Growth - Goal-setting in support of personal growth.
• Service - Leading and participating in community service.

Crew Activities

What a Venturing crew does is limited only by the imagination and involvement of the adult and youth leaders and members of the crew? Sail the Caribbean, produce a play, climb a mountain, teach disabled people to swim, or attend the Olympics.

What Youth Want

Research has revealed these major points:

• High school students have many vocational and avocational interests.
• Teenagers want a broader experience that provides practical "hands-on" experience and is tailored to their cultural backgrounds.
• Teenagers want to belong to a group that provides a "safe haven" from which to address the youth development issues that affect them. These issues include experimentation; moving from dependence to interdependence, social relationships, personal changes and maturity, and a re-evaluation of values.

Our Crew’s Objectives

Written into our bylaws are the following objectives:

• Develop outdoor skills and leadership through fun and challenging activities.
• Become a skilled training and program resource for other scouts and groups in the community.
• Perform meaningful service within the community and for the environment.
• Champion meaningful programs that will benefit the Crew, grow the Crew, and make the Crew sustainable for future Venturers.