Ever thought about young people and volunteering?
- Target more information about volunteering opportunities at young people to help them make better choices.
- Use positive images of volunteering (and less stereotyping) to attract younger people to your organisation.
- Make volunteer opportunities attractive and appealing to young people (Variety, Fun).
- Create clear, progressive and varying volunteer roles for young people.
- Flexibility of volunteering (time and commitment) is important to reflect the diverse range of things which may be happening in a young person's life.
- Make sure volunteering provides benefits to young people in terms of skills, new challenges, work experience and so on.
- Ensure that young people feel valued and respected by others they may be volunteer with or for.
- Make your volunteers feel empowered and consult and involve them in the development of their volunteering.
- Provide a friendly and relaxed environment for young people to work in, with support from an identified person when they need it.
- Ensure recognition of what young volunteers do, either by providing accreditation in the form of a qualification or simply providing a reference or record of achievement, stating skills and experience gained while they were volunteering.
- Make sure young volunteers are never out - of - pocket.
- Follow good practice in management of volunteers in all instances e.g. volunteer policy, recruitment and selection, induction, training, support and supervision.
- Be creative and consider if there are tasks within the organisation which individual young volunteers or a group would be able to undertake and run as their own project, with back-up support
for more information and resources on youth volunteering please visit our downloads and resources page.
