Young People

Empowering Young People to access and sustain education employment and training

Grandmentors: building better futures for young people leaving care in 11 areas of the UK. Volunteer Grandmentors share their skills and experience with young people leaving care to help them get on in life.

Empowering pupils to become better versions of themselves.

Through our fantastic volunteers, Match and Mentor provides support for individuals with learning difficulties and additional support needs to volunteer.

Milton Keynes Community Car Service provides a door-to-door service which aims to help people access key appointments

Led by volunteers aged 16-25, who have been supported and trained by our team, these young people want to play an active role in their community by championing mental health, whilst developing their own skills at the same time.

Family support packs free Children Packs User-friendly, informative and engaging packs for primary-school aged children! Two new packs a month for families Each pack consists of 48 pages packed with fun and resilience-building activities free Adult Packs Information around COVID-19 and family activities. Adult packs come in five languages: English, Romanian, Spanish, Portuguese and Polish Order your online-pack today by … Continued

The S.A.F.E project (Sexual Awareness For Everyone) is for women living in Gwent aged 16 – 35 who have a learning need or disability. The project aims to give vulnerable young people the tools to identify appropriate and safe relationships.

The SAFE programme, Activ8 and Mind Matters response to COVID-19

To celebrate Power Of Youth Day we put the spotlight on Team London Young Ambassadors at Kingston Mencap. One of the TLYA young ambassadors, Adam (not his real name) has used his own experience with mental health problems to develop a mental health plan that provides a safe space for others to feel safe and supported through their own struggles. Over the next few weeks we will be sharing more youth social action stories from our amazing Team London Young Ambassadors.

Sancia is involved with Grandmentors Brent as a young person, and she also runs a youth social action podcast about the experience of care leavers.

With the support of volunteer Grandmentor Bindi, Ruby's dreams of going to university have become a reality.

All local authorities have a statutory duty to provide independent visitors to all children in care (aged 8 – 16+) who would benefit. In Hounslow, London, we’ve been providing an Independent Visitor Service – Hounslow Allies – for over 12 years. We also run Grandmentors in Hounslow. Grandmentors is an intergenerational mentoring programme that matches … Continued

Cole's life has been turned around by his inspiring Mentor Darren. Read about how they were brought together by our award winning Grandmentors project.

Supported by the Grandmentors project, Musa is adapting to his new life in Hounslow and improving his language and life skills.

Kai and Honor have only known each other five months but thanks to the power of their Grandmentors relationship Kai is achieving great things in life.

'It feels to me that I have gone full circle in the volunteering world, by starting as a volunteer and being empowered by the staff there, to becoming a staff member myself and empowering the next generation of volunteers.'

'The goal is to get the kids out of the house, away from their problems, and let them enjoy their time.'

'Taking part in recording Youth Cast encouraged me to speak out and become more involved, when I didn’t really think of it before, as I’m a bit new to volunteering.'

Clare's young person never failed to make her laugh, and even though she was apprehensive about the training, she says she couldn't thank staff enough for the support.

'My young person told me she saw me as the older sister she never had, and felt that she could confide in me and come to me for advice if anything was bothering her.'

Stephanie wanted to be or do something 'more', but didn't know what that looked like. Volunteering with Clackmannanshire Befriending Project is the 'more' she was looking for, and says it totally exceeded her expectations.

James (whose official name is Chih-Chien Chiang) is a full-time volunteer from Taiwan, who is based in London. He supports a BBC journalist with his everyday routine at work.

Sandy spent a year as a full-time volunteer on project Vocal, supporting people with learning disabilities to become actively involved in their community by volunteering.

Ever wondered what a full-time volunteer actually does? Each opportunity is different, and we heard from Larry who volunteers for the disability and well being service at the London School of Economics.

Meeting on the pitch for training sessions before one-to-one mentoring helped Rosalind to build a positive relationship with her Behind Every Kick mentee.

'After I graduated volunteering as a befriender gave me a sense of satisfaction and reward that no desk job ever could – giving your time to someone who just needs a pal is an amazing gift, and one that a young person will remember forever.'

David is 79 and has been volunteering as a schools reading volunteer with Volunteering Matters since 2000. He told us about his favourite parts of the role, and shared some stories from his time in primary schools in Wales.

Karen heard about Grandmentors through the local business community, and is already seeing a great difference in her mentee, only a few weeks into supporting her as a volunteer.

'I originally thought as a befriender I was there just to give my young person time out from their family life and to allow them to have some fun whilst also helping them make positive choices going forward in their lives. I didn’t think for one minute how much I would benefit and gain from being a befriender.'

We’re delighted to share that today Step Up To Serve have announced that Volunteering Matters and UK Youth have formed a new consortium to deliver key functions of the #iwill movement. We can’t wait to work together to keep growing the #iwill movement and ensure young people can lead change through social action. Read the … Continued

Our long-running Action Earth scheme is celebrating the one millionth hour of volunteering time given by volunteers on its funded projects this decade!

Seventy supporters raised £5,000 for Grandmentors, an inter-generational award-winning project of Volunteering Matters. The money will help to provide weekly support for young care leavers over a 6-12 month period, ensuring greater well-being, autonomy and career prospects.

On Friday 28th June our Activ8 project won the Youth Work Project category at the Youth Excellence Awards 2019.

By giving something up this #GivingTuesday and donating the money that you save to Volunteering Matters you can help our young volunteers drive local change

Volunteering Matters North Lanarkshire Befriending Project volunteers were congratulated in a Holyrood Motion, tabled by Clare Adamson MSP, and supported by 11 MSPs. Volunteering Matters is calling for similar projects for all vulnerable young people in Scotland.

The Ofsted report stated that ‘Schemes like the Grandmentors project provide children and young people with further opportunities to develop and reach their goals’.

We are very proud to announce that the new Mayor of Ipswich, Jan Parry, has chosen WASSUP and We Are Patrick as her chosen projects to support through her term in office!

Our new project for women aged 16-35 across Gwent who have learning difficulties or autism, empowering them to recognise sexual harassment and abuse

We've made the final shortlist for the National Mentoring Awards 2019 with our Grandmentors programme!

We've launched a new edition of our toolkit aimed at encouraging more young people in to volunteering within health and social care

Our project WASSUP has won the Third Sector Award for Volunteer Team of the Year!

We’re very proud to announce that our Grandmentors project has received another award nomination, this time for the Good Help Awards from Nesta!

We are delighted to announce that Volunteering Matters has won the award for ‘social care, advice and support’ in the 2018 Charity Awards for our Grandmentors programme.

We have joined forces with Waltham Forest Council to launch Volunteers Supporting Families in the local area! We will be recruiting and training volunteer mentors to support families with children at risk of significant harm through neglect, who are in crisis or who need extra help.

Volunteers from across Hackney came together at Pembury Community Centre to celebrate the launch of our Futures East project.

This month sees the launch of our brand new campaign to change young people’s perceptions of volunteering. Titled ' Revolution You ', our campaign aims to challenge preconceived notions of volunteering and encourage more young people to consider a gap year in the UK. 

To mark National Careers Week, The Petchey Academy sixth form students were joined by volunteers from professional services firm Deloitte for a day of activities designed to develop key employment skills.

Both Stockton Council and Wiltshire Council will be teaming up with Volunteering Matters to launch Grandmentors in their area, providing new inter-generational mentoring to young people leaving care. 

We’re delighted to announce that our work with and for young people across Ipswich has been given a boost this month with the arrival of a new youth volunteering project in the area – Positive Futures.

In this short film we heard from Emma Thomas-Hancock, Director of Volunteering Delivery, about how her work started with young people, how the volunteering landscape has changed and gave her volunteering predictions for the future.

To mark Dignity Action Day on the 1st February, we are delighted to announce a partnership with W.I.N.G.S Cymru to reduce the stigma around talking about periods and provide free sanitary items to young women across Gwent.

 By Aoife Murphy, Communications Manager, with Emma-Jane Hampsheir-Gill, Gracie Chick & George Fielding As part of Volunteers Week and in time for Power Of Youth Day, we want to champion the voices of the young people who launched the Vision For Volunteering and were instrumental to the inclusion of a wide range of voices and perspectives … Continued

The UK’s national Volunteering Show has landed! Volunteering Matters is delighted to be involved in Volunteer Expo Live, a national event that seeks to connect volunteers, organisations and the charity sector together under one roof in order to help introduce more people to the world of volunteering. Volunteer Expo Live, which is being hosted by … Continued

We asked Natasha Craike, Project Co-ordinator of Grandmentors Surrey, to tell us about what it feels like to work at Volunteering Matters. Natasha told us about her experience of being a working mum at Volunteering Matters. As a mum to an 18 month old baby I didn’t think that I could go back to work … Continued

My name is Abigail and I am a student volunteer with the Mind Matters project. I identified that some of the participants struggled to understand the information and material used. As a student-volunteer, I made it my mission to ensure that accessible resources were created so that everyone, regardless of learning ability, is empowered to … Continued

My name is Ben Robinson and I am a 17 year old  volunteer at Volunteering Matters. Before I started volunteering, I was a pupil in Abersychan Comprehensive School but I did not do very much in my spare time and I procrastinated the things that I needed to do.  I found out about Volunteering Matters … Continued

Calling all 18-24 year olds! We’ve teamed up with NCS – National Citizen Service – to support the UK Year of Service. If you are aged 18-24 and have a passion for doing good, the UK Year of Service offers work placement opportunities for you. We have 28 paid-for roles available within Volunteering Matters with … Continued

When Mencap asked us to support their initiative to encourage young people with mild and moderate learning difficulties to volunteer, we were excited to help.  Volunteering can be as beneficial to the person giving support as it is to the recipient, and we felt this was especially relevant in the case of the Mencap students.  Volunteering is … Continued

By merging and by taking a place-based approach – shaped by local knowledge, energy and understanding – more people will be supported.

Gardening workbooks created for children by RSVP volunteers in lockdown

RESPECT Project – sourcing & donating educational packs to support families’ home-learning. One of the many things we’re doing in response to COVID is RESPECT. Based in Suffolk, our volunteers are creating activity packs for children. These are helping families with home-schooling, especially those who may not have English as their first language. The packs, … Continued