During 2024 The Door’s Youthwork Team have been developing and rolling out a new volunteer scheme for young people in our youth clubs. The scheme is called ‘Young Leaders’ and offers young people the chance to take more responsibility in their youth spaces and offer peer support to others. Rather than the team explaining what it’s all about we asked two of our young leader graduates to share their experiences.

OK introduce yourselves…

Hi I’m Holly and I’ve been coming to The Door for 3 years and I’ve been a young leader for 1 year.

I’m Ollie and I’ve been going to Pod in Stonehouse for 2 years.

Why did you want to be a young leader?

Holly: I thought it would help my confidence and help me talk to more people in sessions because I used to be quite selective about who I would talk to.

Ollie: I wanted to help out more at Pod because it’s a really important and special place for me.  I wanted to help other people in the way that The Door has helped me.

What was the training like?

Holly: I really enjoyed it. We were a small group and we would meet once a week before a session at Pod.  I think the training will have been definitely different for everyone but for me I feel like a massive part of why I enjoyed it was because we were so so so diverse. Not one of us was the same, we all brought our own points of view. Some of us were listeners some of us were visual learners but we all picked up what we needed from the sessions. It was nice to feel that, even though I wasn’t the same as the others. Now I feel more confident and comfortable that I learn differently from other people.

Ollie: So this is my impression, sometimes I’m not so good at fitting in and I’m not going to lie but yeah I was terrified at the start of sessions because it was like I don’t know how to act. I didn’t really know what to do. But the training was actually really fun and everyone was friendly. We had the sessions before youth club too so I got to spend even more of my day in Pod which was amazing. Oh and the snacks were great too!

What did you learn about?

Holly: We learned about a lot under two topics, Safeguarding which is about noticing when people might not be doing ok and helping them to talk to the youthworkers before they decline and the practical stuff too.

Ollie: In the training I’ve learned that I need to like kind of push myself a little bit more because I felt like I could have been more involved with things. It helped me be more bold and try to push myself into new experiences.

What is it like being a young leader in sessions?

Holly: I think that the other young people find it helpful to come to talk to someone their own age. To come to someone who will relate to them a lot more easier because we were born around the same time and we are going through life at the same time.

In sessions I go to speak to a lot of different people, I just ask how their day has been and if it isn’t going too great for them then maybe speak some more about it and see how it makes them feel then I can always ask the youthworkers to join in if it’s getting too deep or complicated.

I think as a Young Leader I talk to other people who maybe I wouldn’t usually engage with and they engage with you too. Thinking about it, its feel like some of the younger ones look up to me and the older ones ask for advice that kind of stuff.

Ollie: I usually spend my time in the open spaces playing pool or helping others play pool. I’m really proud that I can now talk to everyone and help them have fun too. Everyone says they want to be a young leader so they can boss everyone else around but that’s not what it’s about. Sometimes I ask people to close the door or change a song on youtube that might not be appropriate for the session but we don’t get involved in telling people off or anything like that.

What would you say to someone that wants to be a young leader?

Ollie: I feel like it is important for people to know that it’s not just something you do because it looks good. I think it needs to be a little deeper than that, I feel like you have to want to be helpful to people you need to want to help other people out. Because being a young leader is about supporting people to grow rather than telling people off or putting them down.

Holly: It’s not for everyone but I think if you’ve got the passion and interest for it and you’re happy to start to engage with more people definitely go for it yeah. And if it’s a bit scary then just start getting stuck in and start getting involved more because you don’t know what will happen until you try. So yeah,  if you’ve got the time and the space and that positive mindset like go for it you don’t understand how many people you will help until you’ve done it, so do it!

If you are a young person or know a young person that would like to be a young leader get in touch with your youthworker or contact the team through our website form