DofE Expeditions and Mobiles

I know this has always been a bit of a bone of contention within the DofE world; can participants use mobile phones whilst out on expeditions, be it a practice or qualifier.

So here’s another example as to why I think they shouldn’t. Via good old FB tonight, a mother is worried about her child because said child has banged her head but has not told any supervisory or assessing staff; oh, by the way, forgot to mention that the child is on a Gold Qualifier…

So how does mother know, yet staff on expedition don’t. But don’t worry, the child actually replies to mother’s comments on FB.

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Your mistake was to use “wild country” that has any hint of 3G signal. We did our Gold in an area of Brecon where mobile phones were seen as witchcraft. No chance of Facebook Chat there.

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So I see on one of the DofE Facebook pages that their are still leaders out there not letting groups carry or. Use mobile phones during expeditions. (The leader in question was basically whinging that they had no photos of the expedition they had just run).

Is there seriously anyone on the modern day that doesn’t insist that groups carry what is a really useful piece of safety kit? (That’s before you consider the bonus of taking photos and playing music once back in Camp).

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So the expedition gets into a world of hurt and mobiles have been banned, just imagine the inquest?

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I have had a parent on the phone threatening to call the police on us because we were apparently starving their child. This was on a DofE practise where the cadet had spoken to mum and she had got the complete wrong end of the stick on what was going on…

But still, I think phones should 100% be allowed, and if the cadets don’t have a phone between them, then one should be supplied. Sending groups out without mobile contact is just a massive extra risk. I appreciate the award has run for years without, and just having some change for a phone-box was the norm. But that’s not the case anymore.

All DofE groups should have at least one phone in the group. Even if, as I’ve seen with some schools, that phone is provided by the school and they can’t take their own.

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I think all groups should have a phone as it is a useful bit of emergency equipment. I do think that, as per DofE rules, there should be a policy in place that is agreed to by the group, for mean that is that they do not use the phone to go on Facebook/Tiktok/snapchat/whatever during the expedition and don’t use it to call anyone except in an actual emergency.

I prefer to send groups out with a phone and my phone number on a piece of paper, that way I know that, if I don’t hear from them, there is probably nothing wrong.

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That’s not what the 20 conditions say.

The 20 conditions say that their should be an agreement between the group and the assessor about how electronic devices should be used. All the rest is made up.

I know they don’t specify that is what the agreement should be, it says there should be one. The rest is what I think the agreement should be.

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As I understand it, DofE don’t dictate what the agreement should say, just that there should be one. I normally say to my groups you can all have their phones, I just don’t recommend that they all have them on, and just use one for photos. I also recommend keeping them off in the evening to preserve battery.

But all only recommendations and MoUs if you like. They get treated as young adults and I sort of leave it up to them, with just some recommended guidelines.

Yes, I know. I’m saying that is what > I < think the agreement should be.

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Yeah, sorry, started writing before your reply.

There’s certainly a scale that leaders/supervisors work with. At one end you’ve got staff that don’t allow phones at all. Other end is staff that really allow any usage.

I consider myself very much towards the latter, but have worked with schools that are closer to the former.

With remote supervision, we send cadets out with a unit mobile that is as basic as they come for emergency purposes.

We encourage taking photos, but discourage anything else. Press 9n them that “although you have this tech available, you won’t always have that crutch so do everything you can to work it out without without cheating.”.

Ultimately, it’s the 21st century. Anyone on a challenge expedition in some remote corner of the globe for whatever purpose is going to have GPS nav, phone/sat phone, GPS beacon, a laptop or camera for a video diary…

If they’re truly stuck, as long as you believe they are disciplined enough to “last resort” it, it’s no longer unreasonable in my mind to use some assistance.

One thing to think about is the level of tech on said phone. Although it seems like a good idea to send them out with an old Nokia brick, this could hinder rescue efforts in a proper emergency! The minimum I’d want is a phone that has decent GPS and access to a web browser.

I have twice used SARLOC to locate groups in an emergency. One of which was a pretty time critical asthma attack. They knew where they were roughly, but I pinged them a SARLOC link and got their exact location within a few seconds. I’m not sure that would work on an old brick of a phone!

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Coming at this from a different perspective. I teach our cadets from an early stage about risk management (not the HQAC version - but something more meaningful which helps them understand decision making, environmental considerations, route selection etc). The smart phone in their hand is a portal to some excellent tools to help with their planning assumptions.

When I’m doing walking in the hills, I’ll lean on MWIS to help inform and shape my day. If we’re going for a paddle, I’ll look at historic river data on RiverApp so I can get an appreciation of what the rivers doing now relative to the weather so I can anticipate what it’s going to do that day. If I’m near a beach or clifftops I’ll look at MagicSeaweed (until a few weeks ago - RIP) to get a wind forecast and work out how to do something tactically to reach the same outcome. I’ve had a group use a forecast to replan a day to avoid a high level route where there was a high risk of thunderstorms between 3 and 4 in the afternoon - they just chose to setout earlier instead!

All these things help in form my decision making as a leader. I show my cadets how all these tools, I share my experiences with them through training - using them at the start to give a prediction and at the end for a reflection and debrief - did what we thought happen.

I would be - and have - been more than happy for a group to subsequently use said tools to help them make those planning decisions. And manage this under the “acceptable use” discussion - but should include the supervisor AND assessor as some of them may include tweaking of plans. It can aid in facilitating success.

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Good luck finding one

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@JoeBloggs made that exact comment with his next sentence??

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Using very old phones is not going to be an option, as phone networks are switching off older 2G and 3G services. If supplying a unit phone, it would need to be a modern phone supporting 4G. Buying an only 3310 might sounds like a good idea, but it won’t be any good for anything more than playing snake!

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