13 year old ds doing DOE award. What can he do for volunteering?

[losenotloose]

I've enquired at two places related to animals and they both won't accept under fourteens. Apparently he has to have the volunteering sorted within the next two weeks to take part. Any suggestions?!

My dd volunteered in oxfam books at 14.

I work in a nursing home and we have quite a few D of E volunteers. They tend to play cards/dominoes/read with the residents. They love it.

Hopefully the Parkrun will work out for him. DS is doing it for his Gold DoE and he loves it. He finishes up in February but is planning on continuing it until he leaves for uni. For Bronze and Silver he was a pool aid at a local swim school/club.

Well my DC got their Bronze DofE by doing it for the volunteering section so....

They may well have done, as lots of others kids have, but the DofE are trying hard to encourage leaders to move away from what's seen as a bit of a soft option to an activity that's more in the spirit of actual volunteering. Going for a walk with a dog is hardly pushing most teenagers even slightly out of their comfort zone. Our centre doesn't allow it any more, on the instructions of Regional Office.

I feel sure I read on here that you can put anything on the form at this point, but change the volunteering plan much later, if a better other opportunity arises. When does he turn 14? When is his deadline to submit all the evidence?

Yes, you can change. I had one girl who changed her skill about 6 times! She was driving me mad!!

I thought the volunteering had to be a bit more formal than 'walk the dog for a friend'. Happy to be corrected, though
I have allowed this but it was for the kids who had a learning disability when I was working at a SEN school. The kids that did this as an option were capable but it was a challenge for them ( as it should be )
When NT children have suggested and I have suggested other options which have been more in the spirit of Dof E ( giving something back to the community rather than walking a neighbours dog who normally walks it anyway)

I was also going to suggest parkrun. Depending on your local one, they are either a bit sniffy about DofE volunteers if they have plenty of volunteers, or they will bite your hand off as they have to put out appeals every week to make sure the event happens. Or you get really lucky like us - my local parkrun doesn't usually struggle for volunteers but has a structured programme for DofE.

My son didn't do DofE but did a school "D of E lite" and had to do six hours of volunteering, so he did six weeks at our local parkrun and really enjoyed it.

He was also offered the chance to be a pool helper at our local pool but decided to do parkrun instead.

Ask the school if he can listen to younger children read?

Local food bank? The project I volunteer at is attached to the our local food bank and we regularly have children from the local schools helping out.

help out with Beavers or Cubs - if you're anywhere near Huddersfield let me know!

Help the Aged befriending

@berlinbabylon that's what we do - a structured programme which is why we can't take on too many at once. We do love having them though. As long as they are reliable - we currently have a very unreliable one and she's very frustrating as can't trust she will turn up.