Girl Scout Program
The Girl Scout program can change the way girls see the world and their place in it. Girls learn the importance of personal responsibility, the value of goal setting, the spirit of teamwork, and the thrill of accomplishment. The Girl Scout program is based on the Girl Scout Promise and Law and four fundamental goals that encourage girls to:
- Develop to her full potential.
- Relate to others with increasing understanding, skill, and respect.
- Develop values to guide her actions and to provide the foundation for sound decision-making.
- Contribute to the improvement of society through the use of her abilities and leadership skills, working in cooperation with others.
Through a working partnership with adult leaders and advisors, Girl Scouts encourages girls to develop qualities of responsible citizenship, cross-cultural understanding, service to the community and to her own religion, as well as positive interaction with her family and friends. These are used to lay a foundation for responsible action as women.
Girl Scout program is carried out in many different settings in the troop, in the community, in a wide variety of outdoor settings, through service unit events, council sponsored programs, and national and international trips.
The Girl Scout Leadership Experience
The Girl Scout Leadership Experience engages girls in discovering self, connecting with others, and taking action to make the world a better place. Discover, Connect, and Take Action are the three keys to Leadership.
Discover: Girls understand themselves and their values and use their knowledge and skills to explore the world.
Connect: Girls care about, inspire, and team with others locally and globally.
Take Action: Girls act to make the world a better place.
In Girl Scouting, Discover + Connect + Take Action = Leadership. All Girl Scout experiences are intentionally designed to tie to one or more of the 15 national leadership outcomes, or benefits, categorized under the three keys to leadership.
From the very beginning, Girl Scouts has been about developing girls' leadership.
Now we're doing it better than ever with national, outcomes-based program activities that give girls the specific knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values that will make them leaders in their own lives and in their communities.
For more information about the Girl Scout Leadership Experience, visit http://www.girlscouts.org/gsle
Girl Scouts is about fun, friends and new adventures, but Girl Scout Leadership Experiences are also powerful enough to change girls' lives. All Girl Scout activities are designed to use three processes—Girl Led, Learning by Doing and Cooperative Learning.
Journeys bring the Keys to Leadership and the three processes together by offering exciting challenges, real-life stories, creative projects while letting girls meet new people, make memories, earn leadership awards, and have fun!
Get an overview of the Journeys
The Girl's Guide to Girl Scouting
The Girl's Guide to Girl Scouting, a brand-new girl handbook, will have one book for each grade level – Daisy through Ambassador. Although described as a book for girls, this book is considered to be a sufficient leader resource as well.
How does The Girl's Guide to Girl Scouting work?
Everyone knows that Girl Scouts have badges. But the Girl's Guide to Girl Scouting has more than just exciting, new badges for every age level. Each guide contains:
A colorful, easy-to-use binder specially designed for girls at each level. The binder comes chock full of essential information and badge activities—plus girls get to customize their own experience by choosing and adding in additional badge sets.
Legacy, Financial Literacy, and Cookie Business badge activities—or, for Girl Scout Daisies, petal and leaf activities. For more information about the National Proficiency badges, check out How the National Program Portfolio Works.
A detailed diagram showing where girls place the badges, pins, or awards with pride on their vests or sashes.
Ideas to help girls tie their badges right into their Journeys.
Vintage illustrations and quotes from Girl Scout history to help girls feel connected to the proud traditions of the past.
An awards log showing girls every award and badge available at their level, as well as the entire badge program at every level, so girls can see how their skills will grow in Girl Scouting.
Tips for volunteers using The Girl's Guide with Daisies,
Brownies and Juniors.
Download the PDF
Tips for volunteers using
The Girl's Guide with Cadettes,
Seniors and Ambassadors.
Download the PDF