A Quick Start Guide for Parents
Badges At Home

First off, you’ll need to be sent a link to sign up for the Parent side of the Online Scout Manager (OSM) portal. Please contact your Section Leader or the Group Scout Leader if you haven’t been sent one of these. You can email them at [email protected].

Logging in to the Parent Portal:

Go to https://www.onlinescoutmanager.co.uk and click Login (top right corner) - you’ll see this:

OSM Login Form

Log in with the email address and password you used/created when you signed up. Once you have logged in, you’ll be directed the the dashboard.

This is your DASHBOARD.

You will see upcoming meetings here.

The three horizontal lines above the OSM logo on the very LEFT-hand side of the screen is your MENU button.

Press the menu button.
You’ll see several options here. For now, the one we want is Badges.

Click it now.

Badges at Home

Once you’ve selected “Badges” you’ll see something like this. The exact badges that you’ll see will vary based on the section that your child is in

Badge Selection

For 1st Halesowen, pretty much all the badges are set to allow completion at home. Some, like “Nights Away” have to be sorted out by a leader, so let us know if your child has participated in something like Big Camp Out, so we can update their record.

Greyed out badges haven’t had any bits completed. As your child works through their badges, and their activities are validated by a Leader, you’ll see them gradually becoming coloured in, like in the picture above. Eventually, when they have finished all requirements of a badge, the icon will be almost completely full – it won’t fill completely until we have actually awarded their badge, whether this be in person or at an online meeting (watch this space!!).

You can look at the requirements for any of the badges just by clicking on them.

I’ve chosen to look at the Adventure Challenge Badge. For some badges, you don’t have to do every single thing listed – it’ll tell you at the top how many you have to choose (for this one, you DO have to do everything). If an activity is listed more than once, your child will need to do more than one different type of that activity. Feel free to browse through these sections to see what kinds of things the badges cover – there are lots of lots of different types of activities, and there’s something for everyone!

See that blue button at the bottom of that screen? It says “Complete at Home”. This is the one you need to click if you have something to share with a leader, because you feel your child has completed one or more areas of this badge.

Click it now.

You’ll then be shown a list of instructions which guide you as to how to show that your child has completed part of a badge.

There are lots of different ways you can show this – a video from you phone, a photograph of a piece of art or writing, or files such as Word documents. There is a size limit but most files and short videos will not go over this at all.

Click “Upload evidence” – this will then allow you to attach your files.

Badge Requirements
Once they have uploaded successfully, you’ll see them appear as “thumbnails”.

Repeat these steps until you’ve added all the files you need to.

Then scroll down.

(If you accidentally upload a picture of Aunt Mildred’s cat, just click the tiny little “Bin” icon in the lower right corner of the thumbnail to get rid of it. Although we don’t mind random picture of cats – they make us smile!)

Tick the criteria that apply to the files you have uploaded – which activity has your child completed?

Then scroll down again.

Badge Requirements

We’re nearly there! Send us a message, tell us what your young person has been up to, how much they enjoyed their activity, or if they found it a challenge. If you’ve got any questions, you can ask them here, too! Then click “+Add”.

Badge Requirements

Job Done!

This then gets sent through to your child’s Leaders, who will look through the files and make sure they have done enough for their badge. You’ll then usually get a message back on OSM, and, if your evidence has been accepted, you’ll see that part of their badge has been coloured in on the main page! Sometimes, we might need to see a bit more – don’t be discouraged if this happens, we’ll give you some hints and tips as to what else needs to be done.

The information on OSM is only very brief. You can find out more information on Badges and their requirements at scouts.org.uk – search for the badge you want to work on with your young person, and there’ll be a page telling you what kinds of things to do.

Any questions please ask – we are here to help, and we love seeing our young people gain badges!