IAVE’s interest in and focus on youth volunteering continues, and we are pleased to announce a new webinar involving one of our GNVL member organizations.

This webinar is a bonus and compliment to IAVE’s Youth Volunteering and Social Change: Challenges and Opportunities Webinar Series.

Volunteer Scotland will share the key findings from its ‘Young People in Scotland Survey 2022’ https://www.volunteerscotland.net/research-evaluation/research-publications/young-people-in-scotland-survey-2022

The session will cover:

• The factors underpinning the decline in both formal and informal youth volunteering between 2019 – 2022.
• The demographic variations in impact across age, gender, deprivation, long-term health conditions, and faith groups.
• Highlighting the amazing contribution of Scotland’s young people during times of crisis: for example, the 9.7 million hours they contributed in 2022.

There will also be a panel discussion to explore the global experience and implications for volunteering policy and practice. This ‘Evidence into Action’ online seminar should be of particular interest to leaders in the field of youth volunteering, policymakers, volunteer practitioners, and those engaged in schools and youth work and who want to learn more about the contribution of volunteering.

About the Series:

During 2022 IAVE gave renewed focus to raising awareness and understanding of how the corporate sector can influence and support volunteering as an agent of sustained systemic change to help young people enhance their employability and find employment. IAVE sought to encourage and enable more innovative involvement by businesses, including working in partnership with leadership for volunteering organizations to create a community of practice.  A briefing or ‘Challenge Paper’ was commissioned to frame and set out the issues, and this was used to inform a series of global dialogues involving participants from some 100 organizations across 75 countries. The dialogue discussions were captured and informed a final ‘Insights Paper’ (published in early 2023) that provides evidence of views on what actions need to be taken to facilitate and support young people through their volunteering journey to develop skills, knowledge and attitude towards enhancing their livelihoods, employability and /or entrepreneurship.

IAVE continues to have a strategic interest in youth volunteering and the key issues that are challenging young people today. IAVE networks and members continue to place a high priority on their engagement with young people. In listening to these voices, IAVE made the decision to consider further two youth volunteering-focused topics. The topics chosen of youth well-being and youth activism have been influenced by experiences recorded during and post the COVID-19 pandemic. There is evidence of an emerging crisis in young people’s well-being, particularly their mental health. There is also evidence of young people being more interested in unstructured volunteer involvement that is organized and led through informal youth networks focused on issues that young people are passionate about and want to add their voices and actions to bring about positive change.

In continuing to give thought leadership to these topics, IAVE is delivering a series of 4 global webinars for 2023 focused on youth volunteering. The webinars will consider the following key issues –

• Youth Volunteering, Employability and Sustainable Livelihoods: Exploring the Role of the Corporate Sector (March 7)
• Youth Volunteering and Wellbeing: Exploring How Volunteering Can Make a Difference (June 27)
• Youth Volunteering and Activism: Exploring How Volunteering Can Empower and Build Leadership to Affect Change (Sept 12)
• Youth Volunteering and Social Change (Oct 3)

Each of these webinars will be supported by a briefing paper commissioned by IAVE and written by Dr Chris Millora, setting out the key evidence and issues.

The fourth and final webinar will explore the broader theme of Youth Volunteering and Social Change as it relates to the issues emerging from the three previous webinars.