Volunteer

Why volunteer with us?

People choose to volunteer with Home-Start Aberdeen to:

Make a difference to a family’s life
Give something back to their local community
Return the support they once received from Home-Start
Share a similar experience
Boost their confidence
Prepare for returning to work or to progress their career
Do something fulfilling with their spare time.

For information on the many fantastic volunteering oppertunities we offer, see below

Home visiting volunteers

Home visiting volunteers

Every day Home-Start Aberdeen is providing life-changing support to families across the city. Our local community network of trained volunteers helps families with young children when they need us most.

Home-Start’s Home visiting volunteers work alongside families, offering compassionate and confidential support, tailored to what each family wants and needs. They undergo extensive training and are supported by our expert staff team. Most of our home visiting volunteers have some parenting experience; they understand that family life can be tough sometimes, which is why their support is so valuable to another family.

Our home visiting volunteers:

· Visit families weekly in their own homes

· Offer friendship, emotional support and practical help and be a regular, reliable presence for families

· Reassure families that bringing up children can be challenging and everybody needs help sometimes

· Emphasise the positive aspects of family life

· Draw on their own experience to help parents develop their skills, improve their confidence and build better lives for their children

· Keep children at the centre of the support focusing on their wellbeing and safety and ensuring the best possible outcomes for them

We offer our home visiting volunteers:

· Excellent preparation for the role through our Volunteer Preparation training course

· Regular and frequent support and supervision meetings, and ongoing help and advice, from a dedicated Volunteer Coordinator

· Ongoing training and personal development opportunities

· The opportunity to make new friends and build social networks

· Involvement in a vital local service which is part of a national and global network

Home visiting requires energy, commitment, reliability, creativity and a sense of humour. It can be exciting or challenging but above all it is extremely rewarding and worthwhile.

Get in Touch

Recipe for life volunteers

Our Recipe for life project supports families to gain the knowledge, confidence and skills to have a healthy diet and make healthy lifestyle choices.

The project focuses on;

Menu planning, budgeting and food shopping
Practical cooking skills
Using leftovers and reducing waste
Cooking with children
Supporting breastfeeding and weaning
Maintaining a healthy diet and weight

Our recipe for life volunteers:

Deliver one-to-one cooking sessions to families in their own homes
Deliver small group cooking sessions with families
Help to create a library of recipes in written, easy-read, and video formats
Emphasise the important of a healthy diet to give children the best start in life
Support and encourage parents to improve their knowledge, skills and confidence around food and cooking
Encourage parents to include children in cooking activities
Help to deliver food and kitchen supplies to families who need them
Go through our Volunteer Preparation training course prior to undertaking specialist training

We offer our recipe for life volunteers:

Excellent preparation for the role through Confidence to Cook, Nutrition, and Food Hygiene training
Regular and frequent support and supervision meetings, and ongoing help and advice, from a dedicated Volunteer Coordinator
Ongoing training and personal development opportunities
The opportunity to make new friends and build social networks
Involvement in a vital local service which is part of a national and global network

If you’re passionate about food and cooking and love to share your passion with other people, then you’re just the kind of person who would make a great Recipe for Life volunteer

Get in touch

Shop volunteers

Our charity shop is located in the heart of the city at 101 George Street, opposite the John Lewis building, and it’s a great place to bag a bargain. Shop profits are used to help fund our work supporting families in Aberdeen.

Our shop volunteers:

Meet and greet customers
Organise and price donations in preparation for selling them
Keep the shop floor and window displays well stocked, attractive and tidy
Take cash and card payments
Provide excellent customer service
Our Volunteer Shop Drivers provide a donation collection service within Aberdeen

We offer our shop volunteers:

A great working environment
A chance to learn new skills
A chance to gain experience in the retail sector
The opportunity to make new friends and build social networks

Click here to find out more about our shop

Friends of Home- Start Aberdeen group

Our Friends of Home-Start Aberdeen group is a small but dedicated band of volunteers who organise fundraising events and support other people who are fundraising for us.

Our Friends of Home-Start Aberdeen Volunteers

Organise, plan and deliver fundraising events, including our flagship themed annual afternoon tea

Build networks with local business to raise our profile and encourage them to support our work
Encourage and support people to take part in sporting events to raise funds for us
Encourage and support people to organise their own fundraising events and activities to raise funds for us

We offer our Friends of Home-Start Aberdeen Volunteers

A chance to learn new skills

A chance to gain experience in event management
The opportunity to make new friends and build social networks
The opportunity to contribute to the vital work of Home-Start Aberdeen, supporting families with young children across the city

Extra pairs of hands are always welcome. Whether you have would like to get involved in planning an event, organising or with admin work, our Friends group will find a job for you!