Volunteering for young people, 14 to 25, how to start

Who this is for

You are 14 to 25 and want to volunteer, or you are a parent, teacher, youth worker or careers adviser trying to send a young person somewhere safe and useful. Vinspired began in 2006 as the national volunteering charity for 14 to 25 year olds, and many websites still describe it that way. Today it is open to volunteers of every age. This page is the honest version of how it works for a young person.

The age rules

There is no legal minimum age for volunteering with a charity or community group in the UK. The law is specific about one thing: under 14s cannot work for a profit-making organisation, even unpaid. Everything else is set by the organisation you volunteer with, and most set their own minimum, often 16 or 18, because their insurance may not cover younger volunteers and because some roles need supervision that a small group cannot provide.

What that means in practice:

Under 16. You can volunteer, and many organisations welcome you, but expect to give parental permission in writing, expect the role to be alongside an adult rather than on your own, and expect some roles to be closed to you. Under 16s cannot do house-to-house collections for charities.
16 and 17. Most roles open up. You can now have a DBS check, which unlocks roles with children and vulnerable adults. You should not be left alone in charge of other people, and you do not count towards an organisation’s adult supervision ratio.
18 to 25. Everything is open, including festival stewarding, trustee roles and roles that need an enhanced DBS check.

If a role’s age rule is not clear from its listing, ask before you apply. A good organisation answers in a day.

What a DBS check is, and when you need one

A DBS check is a criminal record check run by the Disclosure and Barring Service. You can be asked for one from the age of 16, and it is free for volunteers, meaning anyone who is unpaid, receives expenses only and volunteers for the benefit of someone other than their family. You need one for roles with children or vulnerable adults, above all regulated activity: teaching, training, caring for or supervising children on more than three days in a month or once overnight, and any healthcare or personal care. Since 1 September 2026 the old exemption for supervised volunteers no longer applies in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, so more roles with children now need a check than before. The organisation applies for it; you never pay and you never arrange it yourself.

What counts as volunteering

Unpaid work, given freely, that benefits people or causes outside your own family. Helping at a food bank, coaching a junior team, stewarding an event, keeping a community garden, running a social media account for a small charity, mentoring a younger pupil: all of it counts, and all of it can be recorded. Work experience with a business does not count, and neither does anything you are paid for. Something you do once, for a morning, counts too, and Vinspired records it the same way.

How it fits with DofE, school programmes and UCAS

The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award. The volunteering section runs for at least three months at Bronze, six at Silver and twelve at Gold, and in most cases you cannot volunteer for a business. Hours recorded on Vinspired and verified by the organisation are the evidence your assessor needs.
NCS. The National Citizen Service ended on 31 March 2025. If your school or youth group used it for the community project part, volunteering through Vinspired covers the same ground, all year round.
School programmes. Many schools and colleges run their own volunteering programmes, some of them on Vinspired, so your hours, certificates and badges sit in one place your school can see and confirm.
UCAS. From 2026 entry the personal statement is three questions, and the third asks what else you have done outside your education and why it helped. UCAS’s own example is volunteering. What admissions tutors want is reflection: what you did, what you learned, and why it matters for the course. A verified record makes that easy to write and hard to doubt.

How your hours are recorded and verified

On Vinspired you log the hours you did, and the organisation confirms them. Confirmed hours build towards certificates at 10, 50 and 100 hours and towards skill badges such as leadership, teamwork and communication. Volunteering you did elsewhere, before you joined or with a group that is not on the platform, can be added with a referee who confirms it. Your record is yours: you can export it, share a certificate with a school or an employer, and keep it after you leave school, college or university.

Where to look

Start with your place: every city page lists the organisations and roles near you, by cause and by skill. If getting somewhere is the problem, remote roles can be done from home. If you want a cause first, the impact areas run from animal welfare to the environment to mental health.

For parents, teachers and youth workers

Three things to check before a young person starts: the organisation’s safeguarding arrangements, which you can ask about directly through its profile on Vinspired; the role’s age rule and who supervises; and expenses, because a volunteer should never be out of pocket for travel. Vinspired shows the organisation behind every role, and the hours a young person logs are only confirmed by that organisation, so what ends up on their record is what actually happened. If you signpost young people from a website of your own, this page is the one to link to.