	Venturing Silver Award

The Venturing Silver Award is available to all youth Venturing members of the Boy Scouts of America. The purpose of the Venturing Silver Award is to:

Provide a pathway for personal development.
Encourage Venturers to learn, grow, and serve.
Recognize the high level of achievement of Venturers who acquire Venturing skills.
Identify trained and highly motivated Venturers who will be a training, leadership, and program resource for other Venturers, Scouts, organizations, and the community.
Help define Venturing.

Background

Even though your crew's program may be different from another crew's, you share some similarities with other Venturers. First is your age, since all Venturers must be at least 14 years old and not yet 21. Next is your curiosity and desire to learn more about life and the things around you. You probably like exciting, informative programs and activities at your crew meetings. You want to acquire new, usable skills that make you feel like you are really growing in your life. You like a challenge. And, you like to be recognized for your hard work and achievement.

Venturing should be an exciting, advanced-level program where you learn and use advanced skills for your own enjoyment and growth, as well as to benefit others. Life is a series of experiences, and the Venturing Silver Award is similar. It will lead you on a pathway of exciting life experiences that will guide you to become a skilled Venturing leader.

Earning the Venturing Silver Award will identify you as a Venturer who:

has direction in his or her life,
knows how to plan and accomplish goals,
is skilled,
lives the Venturing Oath,
is a leader,
is willing to serve others, and
is one of the proud few to wear the Venturing Silver Award.

Requirements

Like any high, worthwhile recognition, the Venturing Silver Award will be challenging and will take time to earn. It will take you at least 12 months, but there is no limitation on the maximum amount of time other than you will need to complete all work before your 21st birthday.

Requirements (Overview)

These are requirements that all Venturing Silver Award candidates must complete:

Earn one Venturing Bronze Award.
Earn the Venturing Gold Award, which includes knowing and living the Venturing Oath, service, personal development, and 12 months' tenure.
Be proficient in emergency preparedness, including earning Standard First Aid and CPR certification, and knowing and using BSA Safe Swim Defense.
Demonstrate leadership, including successfully completing the Venturing Leadership Skills Course.
Participate in the Ethics in Action program, including Ethical Controversies activities and an Ethics Forum.
Show a crew review committee you have met the requirements for the Venturing Silver Award.

Emergency Preparedness

Being prepared has always been one of the key tenets of Scouting. Being prepared continues to be important for today's action-oriented, can-do-anything Venturers. Venturers must be prepared to take care of themselves as well as be ready to serve others when called. When faced with an emergency, people react in various ways. Some people leave, some panic, some do nothing at all, and some respond. Venturers should be prepared to respond!

Requirements

Become certified in Standard First Aid or equivalent course. If you choose the American Red Cross Standard First Aid version of the course, the curriculum includes how to recognize an emergency and overcome the reluctance to act; how to recognize and care for breathing and cardiac emergencies in adults (training to care for infants and children is optional); and how to identify and care for life-threatening bleeding, sudden illness, and injury. The course is approximately 61/2 hours. Your Standard First Aid certification will expire three years from the date of issue. Your CPR certification will expire one year from the date of issue.
If you hold an unexpired certification in this or a higher course, you can receive credit for this requirement. However, you must be currently certified at the time of your Silver Award crew review. You are encouraged to get certified as soon as possible and stay certified. For this requirement you are not required to seek a higher certification, but you are encouraged to get certifications in higher-level courses such as First Aid--Responding to Emergencies or Emergency Response. You will be even more prepared.
Note: If you need help finding an American Red Cross instructor in your area, call your local Red Cross chapter. For literature, call toll-free 1-800-667-2968.
Become certified in CPR. You can take a stand-alone CPR course or take it as part of another course such as Standard First Aid. Please remember that CPR certification lasts for only one year, at which time you will need a refresher course. Like Standard First Aid, it is good to always be current in your CPR certification. You most likely will get an opportunity to use your skill in saving a life.
Complete the BSA Safe Swim Defense training course. In this course, you will learn how each of the eight points of the Safe Swim program affects safe crew swimming activities. You will learn that qualified supervision and discipline are the two most important points, upon which the other points rely. You will also learn how to set up a safe swim area. Any BSA aquatics resource person, your crew Advisors, or other council-authorized individual can provide the training course for you. Use Safe Swim Defense, No. 34370A, and Safe Swim Defense Training Outline, No. 19-417.
Either lead or participate in a group swim using BSA Safe Swim Defense. Swimming can be a great way for you and your crew members to stay fit and to just have fun. To ensure that you and your friends will continue to do just that, always insist you use Safe Swim Defense.

Leadership

Leadership is a cornerstone of the Venturing Silver Award. As you work on the Silver Award, you will experience many new things, learn many new skills, and learn to serve others. But to effectively take advantage of all these newly learned skills and experiences, you must know how to effectively lead. It is true that some people are born with some natural leadership ability, but the best leaders develop leadership skills and continue to expand and hone those skills throughout their lives.

We all get the opportunity to be followers and leaders. It takes skill to be a good follower, too, but in this section, you will concentrate on developing leadership skills and implementing those skills as a leader.

Requirements

Successfully complete the Venturing Leadership Skills Course.
Successfully serve for at least six months in an elected or appointed crew, district, or council leadership position. Since leadership is a form of service to others, don't be afraid to ask your followers, those you serve, how you are doing. If you don't have an occasional assessment of your progress, you might not improve. Learn to value the opinion of others. This must be in addition to the leadership requirement in the Venturing Gold Award.

Ethics in Action

Another cornerstone of the Venturing Silver Award is learning through experience. While you are working on your Venturing Silver Award requirements, you will have many experiences. You will enjoy experiences that let you interact with your peers, learn decision-making skills, evaluate and reflect so that you can learn from your successes and failures, and discuss conflicting values and form your own value system. Experience can be a powerful learning tool!

Requirements

Participate in at least two Ethical Controversies activities from chapter 9 of the Venturing Leader Manual. These activities are scenarios that will put you and those who do the activities with you into challenging, problem-solving situations. In a constructive way, these activities will help you develop the following personal skills:

Promoting productive conflict resolution
Polite disagreement
Listening to new ideas
Understanding other people's perspectives
Working toward a solution that the group involved will support and implement

Either organize and lead, or help organize and lead, an Ethics Forum for your crew, another crew, school class, or other youth group. An Ethics Forum is simply another, more formal, way of gathering information about ethics. You will invite two or more adults to form a panel for your crew or group to ask questions about ethics in their personal or professional lives. You can even invite adults related to your crew's specialty; if you are in a sports crew, you could invite a sports doctor, a coach, and a professional athlete. You can even invite guests such as family members and friends to join you. You can even use the information gathered from the Ethics Forum to develop your own Ethical Controversies activities.

Silver Award Review

After completing all requirements, the candidate should prepare evidence of completion of work. It should be submitted to the crew Advisor along with the completed and personally signed Silver Award Progress Record and Application. The crew president, in conjunction with the crew Advisor, should then appoint a review committee of four to six people including Venturers and adults. The review committee should review the candidate's written documentation and interview the candidate to determine whether the candidate completed all work and grew as a result of the pursuit of the Silver Award. The application is then approved by the crew Advisor and crew committee chairman and submitted to your council service center.

Silver Award Device

The Venturing Silver Award medal features an eagle superimposed over a compass dial. It also has a red, white, and blue background behind the eagle. The medal is worn suspended from a green and white ribbon which is suspended from a silver Venturing bar. A cloth knot and certificate are also available.

Supply Information

Councils (only) may order the Silver Award from the BSA National Distribution Center:

Silver Award Medal, No. 04186
Silver Award Certificate, No. 33664
Silver Award Pocket Card, No. 33647