Volunteering with care leavers

[Hairydairyfair]

Can I ask if anyone has done this and if so what your experience was like?

The commitment is 2 - 3 hours a week and they are usually 16-24.

I am considering it and would like to hear from anyone who's done it.

I didn’t volunteer, but I did this as paid employment.

What is the setting? Supported accommodation? Community?

Its the best job I ever did, very challenging emotionally - some stories will stay with me forever, and a lot of the people I worked with displayed challenging behaviour and had complex needs such as substance misuse and mental health issues due to their past. Don’t ever take any behaviour personally, and always try to look for the reason behind the behaviour. A lot of the anger I saw actually came from a place of fear.

You will meet some incredible people, their resilience is inspiring and you can help them have a positive outcome! Every single day was different for me, some days I’d be helping budget plan, food shopping, benefits advice, helping them to access education, training, secure housing. There was a lot of listening, diffusing difficult situations and plenty of cups of tea somewhere quiet to have a chat. I was a referee, a counsellor and a professional “parent” in a lot of ways.

Always be as honest as you can be, maintain your boundaries and never promise something you can’t deliver on. They’ve had a lifetime of being let down. Best of luck!

Thanks very much. That sounds like a fantastic job with some great experiences.

I am looking at a volunteering role - it would be with a specific young person that I'd be matched with as appropriate, so their living arrangements would depend on their particular circumstances.

I work full time and I am already an independent visitor for a 13 year old girl in care who I see once a month. However I'm finding that I enjoy that a lot and I wonder if working with a care leaver would be a good idea too.

@Hairydairyfair well it sounds like you’d be amazing at it, best of luck to you!

When I managed a leaving care team, we had some amazing volunteers that made such a difference to the young people's lives, so good on you!
Care leavers can be so lonely and isolated once they get into their longed for accommodation and often the staff can't spend enough time with them.

As well as the individual contacts, some of our volunteers came to help out with the Children in Care Council meetings, which was invaluable, especially with the younger groups.
Your authority might have similar set up, if you're interested.

in our authority, the process included formal interviews with our young people's panels, as well as all the other interviews and checks.
We did this with all staff and volunteers, to give them a voice about who works with them.

I hope all goes well and you have a great time, but DrunkenElephant is absolutely spot on about some of the issues that sometimes arise with damaged young people.
A lot of the work is about listening to young people who haven't been heard much in their lives (along with the basic needs)

i wish you all the best.

Thanks so much

Thank you, this is really helpful - thanks for the detail.

There’s a massive need.
How you draw your boundaries will influence them forever. If you help in an inappropriate way they may struggle to learn personal responsibility, expecting to be bailed out continuously. The training will be really important.

You need a degree of resilience yourself- I’m too porous- take on everyone else’s stress and make myself ill. Useless.

They may have no support network- no older relative figures- no one to ask what happens when… No one with life experience to discuss decisions with- whether to apply for a job, what to do if you hate your job etc.

Very rewarding.

Thank you

@Hairydairyfair did you ever start some additional volunteering work is so how is it going?

Can I also ask is the voluntary work you do once a month with a child in care is it through Barnardo's? I am also wanting to look into something similar.

thanks very much

Thanks for your interest! The existing voluntary work I do is being an independent visitor. If you google the independent visitor scheme there will be one in your local area - it is a statutory requirement for all local authorities to have them. I imagine some LAs do contract out to Barnados, currently mine is through Coram. I would wholeheartedly recommend it.

No, I didn't get to do the work with a care leaver. I applied in early 2024 but I tried to be transparent and disclosed I was trying for a baby but was having fertility problems. So they wouldn't let me apply in case I had a baby. However here we are in summer 2025 and no baby! It is a shame as I did explain it was unlikely I would fall pregnant as my fertility problems are significant, but just wanted to be transparent. They said I was only allowed to reapply when I stopped trying, but realistically I will try for another few years yet (most likely unsuccessfully). It is difficult to know what to do about that as I understand the disruption my having a baby could have on weekly support to a care leaver but I also feel it's a shame as I could have been supporting someone for over a year now and there is a shortage of volunteers. I'd encourage you to apply - it's such a great and much needed thing to do.