Getting parent or carer consent

How to get consent from parents and carers when you're planning exciting activities for your unit

Planning an exciting activity, trip or residential for your unit? Here's how to get parental consent.

If participants are under 18, you need parental consent for any of the below. This includes young leaders, young external volunteers and Rainbow or Brownie helpers. Click on the links to find out how to get this consent:

Adventurous activities

You need to get parental consent for any adventurous activities using our day events and activities information and consent form. If adventurous activities will be part of a residential trip, use the form for a residential in your home country or the form for an international residential as appropriate.

You can find out which activities are adventurous using the adventure for girls activity finder. Choose ‘adventurous activities’ from the categories list and select ‘search’ to see a full list.

You still need to use an information and consent form if you’re planning an adventurous activity as part of your usual unit meeting. This is because adventurous activities carry a higher level of risk. Parents and carers need to be able to make an informed choice for their child to attend the unit meeting and participate in the adventurous activity.

Check our adventurous activities policy and procedure if you're planning an adventurous activity for your unit. This is to make sure girls can enjoy challenging adventurous activities safely.

Activities local to the unit meeting place during unit meetings

If parents and carers have signed the December 2023 version or later of our new starter forms, or the one-page form to get consent for activities local to the unit meeting place, you don’t need to get separate consent from them for their child to participate in a non-adventurous activity in an indoor or outdoor space local to the unit meeting place during your usual unit meeting times.

You must:

Risk assess the activity and decide if you should set up a home contact.
Ahead of the meeting, let parents and carers know about the activity and your plans to get there so that they can have time to make necessary arrangements. Parents and carers need time to make an informed choice to bring their child to the unit meeting to participate.
Follow the adult to child ratios for activities and events outside of your usual meeting place. You may need more adults depending on the type of activity or needs of your members to provide the appropriate levels of supervision.

If you’re planning to start and end your unit meeting at your usual meeting place, make sure the place you visit is within a short distance. You should have plenty of time for your planned activity and be able to get there and back comfortably within the agreed unit meeting times.

If you’re going to use public or private transport, you must tell parents and carers. This must also be part of your risk assessment. Make sure that you’re following our transport guidance and our safeguarding policy. 

If you’re planning to start and/or end your unit meeting somewhere local to your usual unit meeting place, think:

Is it a reasonable distance to ask all parents or carers to travel to and from?
Could you be excluding any young members from participating by choosing to start and/or end the meeting somewhere different to the usual unit meeting place?

‘Local’ hasn’t been defined as a distance because all units are different, and you know your unit and your local area best! For example, what might be a reasonable distance to ask parents or carers to travel for a unit based in the rural countryside might not be reasonable for those who live in a busy city centre.

Make sure all parents and carers are aware of the change and can drop off and/or pick up their child from this location at the agreed unit meeting times.

If you want to slightly extend or change your unit meeting times by an hour to make the most of an activity, make sure all parents and carers are aware and can drop off and pick up their child from the unit meeting place at the amended time. 

You can let parents know about planned activities in the local area in the usual way you contact them. You need to make sure all parents and carers know about your plans including how you'll get to the activity, so they can make an informed choice to bring their child to the unit meeting to participate.

You need to make sure that parents and carers have enough time to read about planned activities in the local area during unit meetings. If you haven’t already let parents and carers know about a visit to the local area, you can’t change your mind about this during a unit meeting. 

Your plans could be dependent on weather, for example, so you should let parents and carers know this in advance to give you flexibility. For example, you could say that if the weather is good for the unit meeting next week, the unit will walk to the local park to play on the equipment there. 

If a parent or carer has already signed an older version of our new starter form, they can either fill out the  December 2023 or later version or you can use this one-page form  to get consent for acti vities local to the unit meeting place. 

If parents and carers haven’t signed the December 2023 or later version of our new starter forms or the one-page form, you’ll still need to get separate consent each time you plan to visit an indoor and outdoor space local to the unit meeting place during unit meetings using our day events and activities information and consent form. 

Events and activities outside usual unit meetings

If you’re meeting outside of your usual unit meeting day and times for an activity, event, day trip or residential with your unit, you’ll need to get parental consent using one of our information and consent forms.

Be clear about whether any deposits or payments for activities or trips are refundable should the event not take place or their daughter is unable to participate. Read our advice on including members with low incomes. 

Download the day events and activities information and consent form

Use this form for day trips, events and activities that aren’t part of a residential. To make it easier, if you have multiple activities planned for the next term, you can list them all on the form. Include details of each event and activity, date, time, location and anything else parents and carers need to know. Once they’ve signed, you then have their permission for all the activities they've agreed to.

Remember that if you add another activity to your programme for the term, you'll need to ask parents to fill out an extra form.

Download the home country residential event and activities information and consent form 

Use this form for a single residential event in your home country, including any activities. You’ll also need to ask parents and carers to fill out a health form for the event, so they can give you information about their child’s health and the details of 2 emergency contacts for your home contact.

We recommend sending this form out with the health form early in your planning, and then asking parents or carers to check the details provided on the health form are up to date nearer the time of the residential.

Download the international residential event and activities information and consent form

Use this form for a single residential event in an international country, including any activities. This form includes an ‘in loco parentis’ statement which is an entry requirement for some countries. For this reason, this form must be printed and have handwritten signatures from parents and carers.

You’ll also need to ask parents and carers to fill out a health form for the event, so they can give you information about their child’s health and the details of 2 emergency contacts for your home contact.

Online guiding and virtual unit meetings

You need permission from parents and carers for girls to be able to join online meetings.

These consent forms can cover multiple online meetings - you don't need a signed form for each meeting.

These forms have been designed to be filled out remotely, so you don't need to meet with parents for their signatures and they can email the completed forms back to you. All instructions are included on the forms.

Check our digital safeguarding policy, procedure and advice on safe online guiding before you start meeting online.

Photos and video

You need permission from parents and carers before taking pictures of members under 18. You should also ask the girls themselves before taking photos of them.

Parents and girls can share their consent for filming and photography on the new starter form and on GO.

For large-scale events (those with 100 or more participants) parents can share their consent for filming and photography on the relevant information and consent form.

Check our guidance on sharing photos and videos.

Do not make your own forms

Always use our official Girlguiding permission forms to collect personal data. Using your own forms will make it difficult for us to support you if there's an accident or incident.