Volunteering for Duke of Edinburgh Silver

[foxbasesecular43]

Hiya, my DD (for various reasons) will skip the bronze award and will go straight on to Silver, which means she needs to do 12 months of volunteering. We've really struggled to figure out the best ways to do this volunteering, wondered if anyone had some good ideas? Thanks!

Doing it a sports or hobby club she is already involved in is a good way. It will be interesting to see, she will be of actual benefit it's something you can put on a CV.

One of my dc did hers in the library.

My dc did volunteering at a local community centre for bronze.
For silver dc is helping in school with lower academic classes of year 7/8 dc in a subject they're doing for alevel. Because this will also support university application.
Dc friends are volunteering at guiding, scouting, sports clubs, reading volunteers in school and the local community run leisure centre (they're the ones I know about). Can your dc speak to the coordinator and see whats available locally/what previous children have done?

You don’t say how old she is but is she at all sporty? If so I imagine her local sports club would be more than happy to have her helping.

Just as an example (bc something I know about) I am involved in athletics and we always need people to volunteer to help or the events wouldn’t run (even the people you see at the Olympics are volunteers). So if someone came forward to my club with this request, we would be happy to have them help – perhaps initially shadowing but I am sure she would be fine to do things like rake a LJ pit or move blocks off the track. She would need to do some H&S training (well even if not mandated I would advise it) but that would be a positive thing anyway.

Obvs this is a summer sport but there are indoor events through the winter as well from about November onwards) – just as an example, I am at an afternoon event in Sheffield this weekend and I imagine if someone was available there would be a task they could usefully do.

I asked her age bc 14yos are welcomed on certain pathways, but 16yo is a bit more common as a starting age.

I am sure many other sports clubs would have similar opportunities.

Park run always seem to have D of E volunteers.

Depending on age, charity shop?

or park run is a good shout

my DC volunteered at a local food bank - they have saturday morning sessions where they need teens to gather and bag up the correct food items from the warehouse shelves to give to each family.

local park also has takes volunteers to do gardening (mostly in the summer) and litter picking.

Would she like to help out with a local Rainbow or Brownie unit?
GirlGuiding accepts young volunteers aged 13+ as well having Young Leaders who are 14+.
If she is at least 15 then maybe also helping at Guides.
You can register on the website.

DS2 does this via scouting. The local hockey club also offers the opportunity to support younger players with refereeing etc.

We accept external requests in my rainbow and brownie group for DofE volunteering. They dont have to join Girlguiding to volunteer if they dont want to (although many end up joining Guides / Rangers to take advantage of the activities for older girls).

My son is still volunteering in a local community hospital, he goes in for 3 hours per week and sits with the patients and does tea/coffee round. He loves it.

DS has joined Interact club and they do a lot of fundraising for charity, apparently this counts.

DD1 volunteered at a primary school after school club.

My DD is doing Silver and has been volunteering with Girl Guides. She did need references to do this, apparently it's something new as they'd never come across this previously, even for a child volunteer.

For Bronze she did a charity shop on a Saturday, for one of the big charities. Charity shop was weekly whereas Girl Guiding term time only, but she had to carry on a bit longer to fill in the gaps caused by this.

Ours have done volunteering through scouts (helping at the beavers group every week) and volunteering at a local community eco / garden type project. It’s hard to get something that runs every week for one hour, but ours have been ok’d to do eg 2 hours every other week, or similar, as long as it’s regular and adds up to the right amount over the right length of time overall.

DS is only on Bronze but is volunteering at Beavers - he did have to wait until this term as apparently he needed to be 13.5 and he's summer born but assuming if you're DD is on Silver then isn't an issue. He is a Scout but don't think this is a requirement.

My daughter did helping at cubs

Scouts paid for her to do a first aid course, young leader course a something else as well during the year!

My daughter is a DofE young leader. She's doing it after school helping with organising things, promoting it in school etc etc. It appears to be some kind of organised scheme as there is some basic online training through DofE

my DS1 helped at DS2s football training
DS2 is volunteering at cubs

A really good one to do is parkrun (Saturdays) or junior parkrun (Sundays)

Helped at Brownies for Bronze and is looking to tutor primary school kid/s for Silver.

If you are in London, I would pick something that is nearby, otherwise 1 hour can quickly turn into three hours including travelling time.

Scouts have good leadership programs.

www.zooniverse.org offers good online volunteering opportunities for those with an interest in history, biology, medicine, geography. Missing Maps might also be of interest msf.org.uk/missing-maps.

My DD did her bronze and silver volunteering at a local Wildlife Trust - they had a group at the weekend for this age group.
For gold she helped run a school club for younger pupils.