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There's still time to book your place on our Engaging Young People in Volunteering workshop. This session will help you to take the first steps to engage young people to volunteer with your charity or community group, or improve your existing relationship with young volunteers. What's Involved? With declining volunteer numbers and rising youth isolation in mind, we know that both VCSEs and young people themselves are in a position to gain a lot from volunteering, but many organisations are unsure how to appeal to this audience. Many groups are also concerned about how to tailor roles to the needs of young people and safely support them. In this workshop, we'll explore the safeguarding considerations of working with under-18s, plus hear from young people about their experiences of volunteering. In breakout groups, we'll discuss the specific barriers to working with young people you face in your organisation, plus how you might overcome them. Finally, we'll share some good practice from local organisations who successfully support young volunteers.

Following the launch of the Norfolk Vision for Volunteering, Voluntary Norfolk is offering free online workshops supporting VCSEs to review & develop their own volunteering strategy; to engage young volunteers; and to develop good volunteer management.

We were joined by our members who shared with us how they were able to continue to recruit and work with volunteers during the pandemic. We covered: What adaptations did groups make during lockdown to support the continuation of volunteering? Have you been supporting existing volunteers who have been unable to continue their volunteer role, perhaps because they have been shielding? Has Covid-19 changed the way you recruit volunteers? Are you recruiting a different type of volunteer? Are you thinking differently about volunteer roles? (e.g. are you breaking roles down into smaller task based roles) What role has technology played in how you manage your volunteers (e.g. training on Zoom, volunteer WhatsApp groups) If we did go back to ‘normal’, what adaptations would you keep and what would you get rid of? What support do you need to improve volunteer recruitment, management and retention?