The Step Up Project
The Step Up Project creates opportunities for young people to volunteer in the community and gain work ready skills for moving onto further education, training or employment.
Each programme is built up of a 10 week programme which is made up of a range of volunteering opportunities taking place across the Lothians.
The type of opportunities are vary varied and each group has a say in what sort of things they want to do. Each week groups of up to 10 young people take part in one or two volunteer challenge tasks – each lasting about half a day.
It's important that the sessions are varied as it gives participants a wide experience of what is out there. We know from experience that trying lots of different things is a good way for each young person to discover what it is they like doing.
What Type of Things Does Step Up Do?
The sorts of things that we have covered in past programmes include:
- Conservation work
- Clean up work along the Water of Leith
- Woodworking skills
- Guerilla Gardening
- Decorating a community hall
Running alongside these days are a number of training days – which help to develop skills that are needed to gain and maintain a job, training course etc.
Each young person taking part can use the programme to work towards a Duke of Edinburgh Bronze Award and Millenium Volunteers Award.
During the programme each young person gets one to one support and is helped to identify and access other things that they want to move on to (this can be other volunteering work, education training or employment).
Here's Some Comments from Young People Who Have Taken Part In Past Programmes
'The project was good for me. It helped me learn new things, develop skills and motivate me to think of what I want to do as a job'
'The Step Up course was beneficial to me..it helped build up my confidence and helped by build my experience of doing different things'
'Step Up is a really good service'
What's in the Current Programme?
Find out more about the current group programme which is running between January and April 2010.
The Staff Team
The Step Up project is run by Sarah who is supported by a small team of sessional workers. Sarah has many years of youthwork experience - in a number of different projects across the UK.
Further Information & How Can I Apply?
Please give us a call at our office on tel: 0131 557 4059 or use our online contact page to get in touch for further information (please leave full contact details along with a note of the service that you are interested in).
It's really very easy to be considered for the programme. First of all you need to make a referral. You can download one here, or by telephone. The Step Up worker will then arrange to meet up with you to discuss the project in more detail with you so that you get a better idea of what you can expect.
If after this assessment we both feel that Step Up is right for you then we will look to offer you a space on the next available programme.