The Youth Social Podcast YouthSocial

In the last of our studio-based youth volunteering podcasts, we speak to a group of five six-form students - Holly, Joshua, Ruben, Annie and Zara - to explore what makes a good opportunity and what teens and young adults are looking for in a volunteering role.

In this episode we speak to the people and organisations that offer youth volunteering opportunities to find out what they are looking for from young volunteers. We meet Louise Sykes from Locala who offer healthcare opportunities, Chris Newberry from the Kirkwood who care for people towards the end of their life, Julie Peel who manages opportunities for Kirklees Libraries, and finally Daisy Whitby, the volunteer support officer at Fresh Futures who support local families.

Graham continues interviewing young volunteers to find out what it’s like to volunteer.  In this episode he speaks to Martha at Uniform Exchange -  an organisation that provide school clothes for people unable to buy new, Omar and Freya at Fresh Futures – who provide support for families and then finally he meets a group of young people who have been getting a taste of volunteering through the Future Creative programme.

For this episode Verity and Katie kick Graham out of the studio to go and interview young volunteers in their place of work. We speak to Alfie who volunteers in the A&E department at Dewsbury Hospital, Mariam who works in a library and Finley & Estelle who are working as in-patient volunteers at the Kirkwood.

In the third episode we look at how youth volunteering can help develop employability skills and to get a job. We chat careers and skills with James Davidson from C+K Careers and to Madi who turned a volunteering opportunity into a full-time paid position.

In the second episode we explore how youth volunteering can help with college work and applying for university. We talk to Claire Barnes, the volunteering and placement manager at Greenhead College in Huddersfield and to Holly Mae – a young volunteer - who at 16 had no qualifications, but is using volunteering to advance through college and go to university.