VOLUNTEER WITH US

Could you give some of your time to help us create lasting emotional health change for some of London’s most vulnerable children?

RESIDENTIAL PROJECTS

Become a residential project volunteer to help our children to build confidence, conquer fears and make lifelong memories. If you’re over 18, join us as a group leader, supporting a small group of children, drive our minibuses or join our Kitchen Crew team to cook tasty, healthy meals. All roles contribute to giving our children the best holiday ever!

Residential Project Group Leader

Residential Project Group Leader

As a residential Group Leader, you’ll stay on-site for 1 week, and gain invaluable experience working with a dynamic range of truly incredible children to help them have a break and a chance to get continual positive adult support.

Alongside at least one other volunteer, you will help foster the empowerment of young people from a variety of underprivileged backgrounds, showcasing their individual spirits through inclusivity and togetherness. You’ll be there to help them to discover how brilliant they are; showing them kindness, and teaching them to be proud of themselves as they explore and grow through the week.

Residential Project Driver

Our Drivers volunteer 1 week at a time, staying on-site overnight, and are integral in making our projects work! As many of our young people would be unable to get to a central meeting point, we go and pick them all up…

… from their houses at the start of the project and drop them off again at the end. We also go out to activities in the minibus each day and unsurprisingly, when asked to draw a picture to summarise their week at Free to Be, many of the children have the minibus as a key feature! It’s where a lot of the important chats, silly games and loud singing happens and can really be the heart of the project.

To qualify to drive for us, you must be over 21 and have been driving regularly for at least 3 years. We also pay and arrange for you to complete your MiDAS (minibus driving) qualification.

Residential Project Kitchen Crew

As a Kitchen Crew volunteer you’ll stay on-site for 1 week, and ensure that our adventures are possible by creating nutritious meals for the children, running cooking workshops for the young people and you also have the option…

…to go out on the activities too! You’ll spend your days singing along to the radio whilst you food prep with the other Kitchen Crew team members, going for walks to pick flowers to decorate the tables or just generally helping out with things around the site. Once the young people get back from their activities, they’ll be ready to devour biscuits as they tell you all about their day and try to convince you to go for a quick bounce on the bouncy castle with them… You’re also the project fairies who organise little treats for the other volunteers (like hidden chocolates or a sneaky portion of brownies for the evening) – you’ll be given a budget for this and can decide what you want to do with your Kitchen Crew teammates.

For Kitchen Crew volunteers, we also fund you to complete your Level 2 Food Hygiene and Allergy Awareness qualifications.

OTHER ROLES

There are lots of other ways you can get involved outside of our residential projects including admin support, mentoring a young person, and logistics driving!

Mentoring

Mentoring provides follow-on one-to-one support for children and young people who have attended a Thrive Outside Gateway Project and would benefit from ongoing time with a consistent adult through weekly or fortnightly sessions…

…over a 12−18 month period.

Generally, children are paired with adults they have already met and connected with during their Gateway projects, enabling them to quickly create a safe and positive space in which to share challenges and download thoughts and reducing the risk of the pairing breaking down.
In order to mentor with us, you must have attended one of our residential projects and live in the London area.

Admin Support

In order to make our projects run, there is so much that needs to be organised behind the scenes. As a volunteer supporting us with administration, you would be right at the heart of the team and all that needs to happen to make our…

…projects run safely and smoothly. The sorts of things you would be involved in include:

– Supporting the recruitment and onboarding process for volunteers
– Assisting with scheduling interviews for volunteer applicants
– DBS admin
– Collecting references
– Volunteer training administration
– Supporting our advertising for new volunteers

Logistics Driver

As well as drivers for our residential projects, we are also often in need of drivers who can drive vehicles for us outside of our projects. This might include moving minibuses from one site to another, taking our minibus to the garage for maintenance…

…and driving vans full of equipment between our storage unit and our project sites. If you are a driver who can’t necessarily commit to a week long project but would love to help in this way, we’d love to hear from you!

PLACEMENTS & INTERNSHIPS

If you are over 18 and looking for a work-based placement as part of a university course requirement or to progress your career, we may be able to help! We are able to offer medium to long term opportunities (from 1 – 5 days a week) that focus on charity administration and direct work with children and young people.

Volunteer for Free To Be Kids

DUKE OF EDINBURGH’S AWARD

Looking for a Residential opportunity as part of your Gold Award? We are a DofE Approved Activity Provider and can offer residential placements completely free of charge (excluding your transport to and from our project site). You must be over 18 to volunteer on our projects and successful selection will be contingent on completing our standard application process.

View our volunteering Schedule >

Volunteer for Free To Be Kids

"Volunteering with Free to Be Kids is always one of the highlights of my year. From the first moment I arrived at a project, the adult team have all been incredibly supportive and kind. Even more importantly, it’s such a pleasure and privilege to work with the children – they bring enthusiasm, open minds and a strong sense of fun to the trips away. Whether you’re camping, canoeing or making friendship bracelets, it’s always a rewarding and action-packed experience.”

George

“I have felt valued and supported as a volunteer. The structure of the projects gives me as much of an opportunity to grow and develop in a safe environment as the young people. I look forward to the time I spend on projects immensely and have recommended Free to Be Kids far and wide – its inspiring to be part of a charity which is so motivated to grow its scale and impact all whilst retaining focus on the individual young people and their specific needs.”

India

“I feel privileged and proud to have volunteered with Free to Be Kids for several years. Many children attend projects year after year and you get to be part of their progressive journey. It’s amazing. The emotional rollercoaster the children and you yourself have is life changing.”

Shaun

FAQs

See our volunteering schedule above for forthcoming project opportunities. Places go fast, so get your application in as soon as possible to avoid disappointment!

To provide continuity for the children, it is important that all volunteers attend the full length of projects – it is not possible to volunteer for a part of the project. For this reason as well, all volunteers must be residential (accommodation will be provided at the project site).

Our projects happen in buildings we hire (usually outdoor education centres) in rural locations within a couple of hours drive of London. The buildings contain all the facilities we need for the project, including a large kitchen, a dining room, outdoor space to play and sleeping areas for the children and volunteers.

No! Just lots of enthusiasm, energy and a desire to throw heart and soul into giving our children a holiday to remember! We provide full project training for all new volunteers (we’ll let you know about the dates for this once we have received your application) and you will be working closely with experienced team members who have done the projects before and know the ropes, so you’ll always be well supported. That said, we are always on the lookout for people with specific skills and training in First Aid, Catering and Food Hygiene and Minibus Driving. If you are interested in doing any of these things, but don’t hold the relevant qualifications, we can usually arrange training for you to, so please let us know.

Yes, please don’t worry! So long as you bring a sense of fun, positivity and some determination to the project, you’ll be fine! We’ll give you some pointers on what to expect and how to manage the sorts of challenges that might come up. The most important thing is that you have the right attitude and approach – that you’re willing to be flexible and patient when plans change or things go a little wrong, that you can work reflectively and inclusively, that you don’t mind ‘roughing it’ a bit (you will be sharing basic accommodation with other volunteers and probably won’t have the luxury of nice long baths and showers!) and you are prepared to not get a huge amount of sleep for a week!

Our projects are usually a whirlwind, but you’ll soon find your feet! Most people work as Group Helpers, attached to a small group of similarly aged children, alongside another volunteer. Each day, after breakfast, your group will head out in a minibus, accompanied by another group and their helpers, to take part in a range of outdoor activities, (things like horse riding, canoeing, visits to a farm or trips to a beach). You’ll be joining in as much as possible with the children, encouraging them and sometimes (for the things that don’t require a qualified instructor), working with the other volunteers to lead the activity. You’ll have a packed lunch whilst you’re out and then, in the afternoon, everyone will come back to the project site for a snack and some time to play.

Depending on the size of the project and the time of year, everyone may eat dinner together before heading out again in different combinations for another activity, or you may go off site again for the whole evening, to do an activity which includes your dinner (such as a night walk with fish and chips, a barbeque or cooking over a fire, before camping out for the night). Finally, you’ll put the children to bed with hot chocolate and lots of bedtime stories before having some well-deserved down time with the rest of the volunteers and heading to bed yourself.

We really hope so! Many hundreds of volunteers have joined our projects over the years and we have generally been able to make adjustments to ensure they can work with us successfully. From catering for allergies and special diets, to arranging single sex sleeping accommodation, prayer rooms and additional rest times, we will do everything we can to support you. There is space within our Volunteer Application Form to explain any needs you may have – please provide as much detail as possible.

The only cost you will incur is your travel to and from our project site (usually, if you are coming by train, we can collect you from the nearest station). Once you are with us, all food, accommodation and activity costs are covered by us.

You can sign up by completing our online application form. Once you submit it, you will receive confirmation that it has reached us and we will be in touch with information on next steps. Please bear with us – depending on where we are in our recruitment cycle, it may take us a little bit of time to get back to you, but in the meantime, if you have any questions, you can contact us at recruitment@freetobekids.org.uk.

As part of the next stage of your application, you will be invited to attend some online training and offered a 10 minute interview with a member of our team. Its compulsory that you complete both a successful interview and the relevant training prior to the commencement of your project with us. We’ll also need to complete an enhanced DBS check for you, unless you are already subscribed to the DBS Update Service. We will make arrangements for this with you ahead of your training.

If you have any other questions that we haven’t answered here, please feel free to email us at: recruitment@freetobekids.org.uk

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