Drawing on the traditional Girl Scout program and with the needs of 21st century girls in mind, GSUSA is revitalizing its program to focus on leadership development. With this in mind Girl Scouts will reorganize their council structure and revamp the program and age levels within scouts.
GSUSA’s National Board of Directors recently voted to realign our local councils. 309 councils will become “109 high-performance, community-based councils.” Local councils are currently working together to make the transition smooth when it becomes official on January 20, 2007.
These changes are not being made lightly. GSUSA spent several years asking girls, volunteers and staff what they wanted to see in Girl Scouting. They also conducted a year-long research project to determine where Girl Scouts should focus.
While many of the details are still in the works, there are some things you expect to see in Girl Scouts in the coming years:
- More focus on leadership development
- New age levels:
- Daisies: Kindergarten and 1st grades
- Brownies: 2nd and 3rd grades
- Juniors: 4th and 5th grades
- Cadettes: 6th, 7th and 8th grades
- Seniors: 9th and 10th grades
- Ambassadors: 11th and 12th grades
- New fund-raising models
- Improved volunteer systems
The new Girl Scout mission statement sums up what GSUSA is hoping to accomplish with their new focus:
“Girl Scouting builds girls of courage, confidence, and character, who make the world a better place.”