North Yorkshire schemes need volunteers to help young people thrive.

There are more people required to help deliver the services of both the Independent Visitor project and Buddy Network scheme.

These schemes are administrated by the North Yorkshire council and operated by, the charity, North Yorkshire Youth.

For volunteers with the Independent Visitor scheme, you would befriend young people in local authority care, get to know them and enjoy taking part in activities together once a month for a minimum of two years.

Activities can include anything from taking a talk, going for a coffee, playing sports together or visiting museums and parks.

Also, the Buddy Network scheme is designed to assist and support young people as they reach the end of existing support.

These young people meet with volunteers for an hour on a regular basis to chat and offer help and advice, this takes place in the community for roughly six months.

Both schemes have recieved great success, with those who have taken part talk about how the schemes have brought stability into their lives

Ian Carman, from Boroughbridge, is a volunteer with the Independent Visitor scheme.

He said to North Yorkshire Council, ”I joined the Army aged 16. I had a tough life growing up and the Army became my family.”

”I have a great belief that everyone knows right and wrong but that they maybe need a bit of guidance along the way to help them make the right choices.”

”Being the father of two boys, now aged 31 and 26, I have experienced lots of issues with young people and felt I could put that to good use.”

Ian said that he learned a lot from his first involvement with the service.

”This was very new to me but turned out to be rewarding for both parties,” he said.

“I enrolled on some free courses set up by North Yorkshire Youth to help me and learned very quickly to allow the young person to talk about their interests before I got them to concentrate on what we were working on.”

”It was apparent very quickly that he was happy that I was interestee in him and what he was doing. I now use this approach in all my buddy contacts of which there have been five or six over the ten years.”

Anyone over the age of 18 can apply to volunteer for either the Independent Visitor or the Buddy Network schemes.

There are no formal qualifications needed for volunteers, but you do need to be able to relate well to children.

North Yorkshire Youth provides mandatory training along with further opportunities for developemtn for anyone taking part.

Any volunteers wanting to help with either for Independent Visitor scheme or the Buddy Network can contact Stef Benson on 07398 149496 or email stef@nyy.org.uk.

For more details on the schemes are available on the North Yorkshire Youth website.