Volunteering with young people can be hugely rewarding, and can help you gain skills experience for a career in the same field. Young people are usually defined as being 16-24 years-old (under-16s are children). It's a wide age range, encompassing the transition from childhood to becoming an adult, and volunteering opportunities are many and varied.

Youth clubs can be a great place to volunteer. You'll need the patience and enthusiasm to work with young people from a wide range of backgrounds, but in return you'll have a great time and get a good grounding in youth work.

Another big involver of volunteers with young people are national organisations like the Scouts. Their Explorer section is thriving, with the 14-18 year-old members able to choose activities including power-boating and mountain climbing. You don't need to have been a Scout yourself to be an Explorer Leader, but you will need to undergo thorough training, have bucket-loads of enthusiasm and great communication skills.

If you've got business experience you might like to get involved with an organisation like Young Enterprise. Based on the principle of 'learning by doing', each programme involves practical, fun, hands-on activity, led by a volunteer from local business or the community, working alongside teachers or lecturers with specifically designed Young Enterprise programmes.

If you're a young person yourself, you might be interested in volunteering with other young people. Whether helping a disabled person to attend university or offering online relationships advice, there are lots of ways for you to get involved.

Remember, when searching for volunteering opportunities using the do-it.org.uk database, you can select 'Youth' from the Interests menu or 'Youth Work' from the Activities menu. There will also be a crossover with other categories, so you might want to use 'Young people' or 'Youth' in the keyword search to give you the widest range of results. 

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