DoE silver- ideas for volunteering

[tostaky]

Hi, my DS would like to do his silver DoE.
Last year he was a helper in a school but he did not like helping younger children so much

He could work in a charity shop but he is not keen.

Can you tell me what your child did to give me some ideas?

My DS is not the outgoing type, more like the nerdy type. He did wrote in his application (unprompted) that he wanted to improve his social skills.
He is not into sports. He likes rap music and debating asbract concept with his Dad! He is very much into maths and physics and computing.

Thanks

Both mine did parkrun. I know you said he’s not into sports but if you request barcode scanning it’s just scanning the finish tokens with an app so they enjoyed it. If you do junior parkrun it’s over in about 20 minutes so easy to fit it your life.

My daughter did her volunteering during Covid when most in person things were off limits. She volunteered on a science project instead where she helped identify and count numbers of animals in a national park by assessing photos. She found it in Zooniverse - www.zooniverse.org

There's loads of different projects in all sorts of different subjects. Perhaps he might find something interesting there?

Litter picking?

DD volunteered in the library.

I don't know if they are still running this but DD did her volunteering with YHA and made a video. We visited a few hostels & she took photos & video clips & made YouTube about it.

volunteer.yha.org.uk/volunteers/events/1848

Animal shelter?

My ds volunteered at beavers, might this be preferable to a school as it's less structured and involves lots of playing games...

Mine volunteered at a primary school but went after hometime and did jobs like photocopying, cutting things up, laminating etc so didn't have to talk to anyone much.

One of mine volunteered at the local National Trust property for the summer. It was mostly directing car park traffic but they still enjoyed it. Or is there a maths club or similar at school they could help with?

I volunteer at junior Parkrun and we have lots of DofE youngsters. Is there a coding club he could help with if he’s good at computing?

Thank you - lots of good ideas!

Does he like animals? Somewhere like Dogs Trust?

I volunteered in a Nursing Home when I did mine but he might not be keen if he struggles socially. I will say though I was a very shy teenager and found it hard at first but was actually good for me in the long run for building confidence in speaking with adults.

I did a variety of things, helped in the kitchen washing dishes, helped with folding clean laundry, handed out tea and meals.

Lots of ideas here: https://education.rspca.org.uk/learningprogrammes/dofe

I was going to suggest park run! Mine has done a lot of very random things, sports marshalling, helper at sports club for young kids, social media for a low key charity I am on the committee for, librarian at school (mainly shelving books) she’s planning on helping out a bit more at her dance school, she has also done some bake sale type things to fundraise for the local cat charity. She’s pretty active so if she is going to do something she asks if she can help and there’s another hour or two!

my older ones did code club and helping at cubs as well

DD volunteered at an animal sanctuary

I've had students help out after school with the gardening club. Any interesting clubs at their school?

Is this for D of E, as I thought they had to volunteer at the same thing for the whole period?

My friend did puppy walking with Guide Dogs

Mine do this. They love it and we still go even though they don’t need it for DofE anymore. I Marshall tooo!

Young Wardens at a Nature Reserve they have a dedicated programme for DoE at our local one.

Some of it was D of E some was for a local volunteering scheme we have here some was for a guides badge. I also have more than 1 child who did multiple awards, also during covid they changed some of the rules. As I read it at the moment you can change once but I am not an assessor just a parent you would need to clarify with the scheme directly.

Thanks for clarifying!!

My foster son did DoE during COVID lockdown and all he could do was litter pick. It's a shame because he now helps train disabled cricket every other Saturday.

Mine volunteered at a local WWT reserve for bronze and silver - it was a group specifically for under 16s (for whom options are more limited than over 16s) - they helped build 'outdoor classrooms", doing things like dead-hedging, tree planting and path building.

For gold she helped run the school robotics club for younger pupils - something like that might possibly suit your DSs aptitudes?

A bit more on parkrun volunteering, specifically because you said that your son isn't sporty: you really, really don't need to be sporty to volunteer at parkrun, and in fact many of the participants aren't sporty either, so you certainly don't need to be for volunteering either! It's such a wonderful, community driven and inclusive environment, with lots of different roles that your DS could do, it takes very little actual time but still has a really high impact.