Want to get out to more gigs? Gig Buddies with Thera Trust pairs volunteers to adults with a learning disability based on the gigs you both love going to! This can be music, theatre, sport, or just going for coffee. It’s whatever your ‘gig’ is! Gig Buddies pairs get out together once a month to get to know each other and enjoy their shared passion together. You’ll also communicate regularly and plan your events together. The role requires roughly 4-6 hours per month, having a chat and getting out! Volunteer expenses are paid and we have relationships with a number of venues/event organisers that offer loads of great opportunities to our pairings, including DF Concerts, King Tuts, The Edinburgh Fringe and International Festivals, The RSNO, National Theatre Scotland, Sneaky Pete’s and more!

Friendz Volunteer Want to make a difference? Do something fun and inspirational with a serious impact? Become a Friendz Volunteer! Social isolation and loneliness have a major impact on the health, well-being and life expectancy of adults with Down’s Syndrome. Down’s Syndrome Scotland’s exciting new Friendz Meetups programme aims to tackle the loneliness and social isolation experienced by adults with Down’s syndrome in Scotland. By becoming a Friendz volunteer you can help young people and adults with Down’s syndrome get out and about more, meet up with each other and grow their friendships as well as their confidence, self-esteem and independence skills. On top of that, it's also fun, rewarding and will make a serious impact on the people experiencing social isolation in Scotland!! Friendz volunteers will form part of a team of trained, skilled, volunteers who will support small groups of adults with Down’s syndrome to come together for monthly social, community Meetups designed to promote the development of friendships, social skills, community confidence and independent decision making. Volunteers will also support the group members in identifying activities, groups and places of interest in their local community that they can access independently. The Role: To support young people and adults with Down’s syndrome to participate in social activities in small groups within their local areas to develop and sustain friendships with their peers through engaging in fun group activities together and gain community confidence. What the role involves: - Person centred support to young people and adults with Down’s syndrome in a social group situation. - Enable adults with Down’s syndrome to develop their friendships with each other by helping to make meeting arrangements, supporting independent travel and planning the social activities they choose to do. - To provide discrete individual/group support and promote a positive group dynamic, encouraging participation, responsibility taking and positively acknowledging skills and qualities of group members. - To ensure group safety and wellbeing through dynamic risk assessment and adaptive decision making. - Communicate positively with participants, parents and carers. - To establish and maintain appropriate boundaries within the volunteering relationship. - To support members to think about what’s on in their local areas and encourage positive lifestyle choices. - To participate in support, individual and peer supervision meetings and training events.

The Men’s Group will be a new social group for autistic men or men with a learning disability. This will be a safe space in which to talk, take part in meaningful activities and learn life skills. This would be a weekly opportunity to help with this group, taking part in activities that the men are interested in, and possibly working alongside outside organisations to come and give talks.

UNIQUE Friends Together is a Community Group based in Ayr in the south west of Scotland. Our purpose is to promote inclusivity and integration for young people aged 16 to 30 with additional support needs. We do this by organising and running safe and accessible social events and activities such as disco, karaoke, games, cinema, trips etc. New people are always welcome to come along to any of our events - we love seeing new faces. The group is run entirely by volunteers and managed by a small committee of five Trustees. Our trustees and event volunteers include parents/guardians of young people with ASN. We are looking for volunteers who can provide social support and help out at our various social activities and events, for example discos, cinema/movie nights and karaoke. We have regular social events every second Friday evening with occasional activities happening from time to time. These events provide fun, friendship and social inclusion for the young people who come along. We are based in Heathfield Community Centre in Ayr and the events take place there. Event Volunteers We are always on the look out for great event volunteers. Without them we simply would not be able to run our events which benefit so many young people with additional support needs. Our event volunteers encourage and support the young people to participate and develop self confidence. If you can spare two or three hours every fortnight or even once a month to help out at our events then we would love to hear from you. This is a great opportunity to share your social skills (and dancing skills sometimes! ;-) and make sure our activities are well supported, safe and successful! Interested? Could this be you? To find out more please email enq.uniquefriends@gmail.com