Befriending is a fantastic, rewarding, way to make a real difference to the life of someone else. Apart from the personal satisfaction of helping someone, it’s also an opportunity to enhance your own life experience and build new skills. Our befrienders offer one to one support to a young person aged 8 to 18, who has Cystic Fibrosis. Young people living with this condition have a demanding daily treatment regime at home and sometimes experience limitations that can affect their confidence and ability to cope with the challenges of everyday living. They may also be socially isolated because of their condition. A befriender will meet with the young person every 1 to 2 weeks, to build a trusting one to one relationship. A commitment of at least a year is sought - this will allow the young person time, space and a suitable environment to explore their feelings, discuss their fears, develop life skills and grow in the areas where they may be struggling.

Big Hearts Befrienders provides one-to-one befriending for children and young people aged 5-16 years either in kinship care or who are socially isolated within the city through supporting them to learn new skills and provide a social experience. Through the befriending relationship the child / young person and the befriender may touch on topics such as increasing self-esteem; dealing with worries; respect for others, with the main aim of building a trusting and reliable relationship with an adult and working towards set outcomes.

Grandmentors is an award-winning, inter-generational mentoring programme, operating in various locations across the UK. We are currently looking for new Volunteer Mentors to join our programme in Perth and Kinross which launched in 2023. It is widely recognised that care-experienced young people are some of the most disadvantaged in society. Many are in care because they have experienced, or are at risk of, neglect and/or abuse. Security and stability are often missing from their lives. We recruit, train and support volunteer mentors (normally but not exclusively aged 50+) who draw on their wealth of professional and personal life experience and skills to support young people (aged 16-26) through life transitions on their pathway to independence. Grandmentors is all about empowering and positive relationships, aligning to “The Promise” that Scotland made to its care experienced population. Young people are listened to, heard, and responded to. They benefit from safe, consistent loving relationships, and access to meaningful support to boost mental & physical wellbeing, resilience, and confidence. Grandmentors facilitate conversations around keeping well, coping strategies, self-care, and self-management. Each young person alongside their Grandmentor co-produces a bespoke support plan and set goals based on their needs. They explore and review the young person’s challenges, and priorities. These range from enhancing mental & physical health and wellbeing, dealing with stress and conflict, support to access sustainable and appropriate housing, career, and education goals, budget planning and more.

Give the gift of your time and become a volunteer mentor for young people. It could be life changing for you both! Would you like to support a young person on their journey to gaining new skills and experience, becoming more self-confident and achieving their goals? If the answer is yes, we would love to hear from you. Why mentoring? Mentoring is at the heart of what we do here at ProjectScotland and we offer every young person we support, the opportunity to be matched with a volunteer mentor. We are searching for people in Dundee who are able to offer one hour of their time once a week or fortnight for up to 12 months to help transform the life of someone else. The young people we work with all face different challenges in their lives such as; mental ill health, long term unemployment, low confidence and self esteem, care experienced, limited English communication skills due to being new to this country or disabilities. As a volunteer mentor, you could support your mentee with whatever is important to them. This could be: goal setting; identifying interests and strengths; confidence building; helping to establish a routine; support to explore job, training and further education opportunities; social connections; or just someone consistent to talk to and check in with to see how they are. The support you can offer is invaluable and can be life changing. How does it work? • Following recruitment, we provide training, support to join the Protection of Vulnerable Groups Scheme, ongoing support, access to lots of resources and a wonderful community of mentors across the country to connect with, learn from and build friendships with. • you are matched to one young person and meet with them once a week or fortnight for around one hour • meetings can be face to face or virtual using email/telephone/video chat/WhatsApp. There is also an opportunity to do a mixture of the two which offers a flexible and accessible approach to this volunteering role in addition to the match itself. •matches can last from 3-12 months depending upon the relationship and the needs of the mentee What’s in it for you? • Help transform your mentee’s life • Develop communication and interpersonal skills e.g. coaching, motivating others, adaptability • Gain transferable skills and experience volunteering with disadvantaged people • Participate in regular support and training • Meet new people, connect and have fun! • Learn about yourself and gain a sense of achievement supporting others • Learn more about your community and the challenges that people can face If you are interested in this opportunity please email: alice.carbone@volunteeringmatters.org.uk We would love to hear from you! More info about ProjectScotland: ProjectScotland (now part of the Volunteering Matters Family of Brands) works with people (predominantly young people) across the country who are struggling to overcome challenges such as social isolation, mental health issues, low confidence and general uncertainty about their futures. By providing wrap around support and the chance to complete a voluntary placement with a local charity; not only can this enhance confidence and self-belief, but it gives that individual the opportunity to build on their skills and experience and potentially move on to a job, further education or training. Everyone we work with is also offered a volunteer mentor.