Embedding opportunities for young people – the ‘what’ and ‘why’

The features of embedding volunteering opportunities for young people include:

Facilitating young people to share their experiences to embed volunteering as a positive experience for young people:

What action you can take

• Maintain an agreed placement plan for each young person.
• Arrange volunteer feedback sessions.
• Undertake exit interviews with young people and hosts to capture learning and collect positive messages about volunteering and engagement
• Demonstrate how young people’s status in communities has been enhanced
• Ensure there is sufficient staff support for young people

Arguing the case for embedding

“Use young people (or staff) to promote the opportunities” (Young person, quoted in Doers and Shapers, DMU, 2009).

Share and celebrate good news stories from volunteering activities both internally and externally

What action you can take

• Build on successes and show positive results.
• Hold joint learning events relative to the project.
• Celebrate achievements and awards
• Use formal reporting, in a particular locality, target group or community of interest to share your experiences

Arguing the case for embedding

The impact on young people of knowing they had ‘made a positive contribution’ to their own local area in some way was very marked (Doers and Shapers, DMU, 2009).

Decide whether the activity will continue or how it can develop

What action you can take

• Use feedback from young people and hosts to inform development.
• Consider alternative structures/mechanisms for the delivery of volunteering and engagement work.

Arguing the case for embedding

The value of these schemes is best achieved where youth engagement is embedded and owned in the local authority and short-term funding is used to enable enhancements or extensions to an existing system of good practice in youth involvement. (Doers and Shapers, DMU, 2009).

Find out about embedding in action – learning from the projects >>