Volunteering Ideas for Under 18s

It can be difficult to find opportunities for young people under 18 owing to the nature of the roles and the experience and skills needed to carry these out. Organisations are also sometimes concerned about the level of supervision a younger person might need and there are often personal safety issues as well as health and safety and insurance concerns.

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For these reasons, most volunteering for under 18s takes place in the school or college environment. But outside of this, you could try the following:

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Identify groups in your local area that are already established to provide services or run activities for young people, for example, your local Scout Association groups, Girlguiding UK groups (including Brownies), youth clubs, sea cadets, youth amateur dramatics groups, young people’s sports groups. Make contact with them to see if they involve under 18s as volunteers. 

 

Here are some local organisation and groups to get you started:

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• South Derbyshire Scouts (dc@southderbyshirescouts.org)

• Derbyshire Girlguiding (office@girlguidingderbyshire.org)

• Collective Hub (Swadlincote) (swad@crderbyshire.co.uk)

• Hilton Youth Group (Hilton) (hiltonyouthgroup@gmail.com)

• Friday Night Project (Swadlincote)

• St Johns Ambulance (https://www.sja.org.uk/get-involved/volunteer-opportunities/volunteer-roles/youth-team/)

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Consider approaching local charity shops, for example:

• Barnardo’s (Church Gresley) - Roles include customer service, sorting donations, and merchandising. DofE students are welcomed who are aged 14 years old.

• British Heart Foundation - Has lots of flexible volunteering activities that can be carried out as part of your volunteering section and some of these can be carried out if you are under 16 (their shop roles are 16+ only).  Download the fundraising pack to help with planning https://www.bhf.org.uk/how-you-can-help/fundraise/dyot/get-started.

• Cancer Research UK (Swadlincote) – They are one of the few charities that accommodate DofE students who are aged 16 years old and over with volunteering opportunities in their stores. 

• Oxfam (Derby or Tamworth) (https://www.oxfam.org.uk/get-involved/volunteer-with-us/duke-of-edinburgh-volunteering-with-oxfam/).

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Take a look at our volunteer opportunities page to identify possible organisations to approach about volunteering. They may only be advertising roles for over 18s, but there may be something else you could do for them.  Here are some examples of what you could offer:

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• Fundraising (click HERE for 101 ideas).

• Creating social media or marketing content for them.

• Supporting creating or managing their social media.

• Researching a particular subject on the internet.

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Explore some of these additional suggestions:​​

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• The Organic Cookery School is a not-for-profit community cookery school that offers DofE-approved volunteering and skills activities to young people across the UK. Their ‘Community Chef Award’ offers Bronze, Silver, and Gold participants the chance to use their cooking skills and enthusiasm to benefit their local community over 3, 6, 12, or 18 months, as well as gaining a level 2 food safety and hygiene qualification. Recent participants have volunteered in local food banks, cooked for homeless shelters, organized bake sales for their preferred charities, cooked for elderly or vulnerable neighbours, or provide healthy packed lunches in school holidays to local children who would normally receive free school lunches. Suitable for young people aged 13 years + (https://www.organiccookeryschool.org/duke-of-edinburghs-award-approved-volunteering-opportunities-community-chef-award).

• Youth Hostel Association (YHA) offers virtual volunteering options for those aged 14 years and older (see https://volunteer.yha.org.uk/volunteers/events/VirtualVolunteering)

• The National Energy Foundation (NEF) is an independent charity that aims to give people and organisations the knowledge, support, and inspiration to improve the use of energy in buildings.  Energy Envoys: Set up an exciting project to help your community use energy more wisely, save money, and help save the planet. (volunteers aged 14+) (http://www.energyenvoys.org.uk/content/welcome).​