THIS month the NSPCC is running a recruitment drive for volunteers to support our Schools Service across Yorkshire.

One of the most common reasons young people want to speak to our Childline service is to raise concerns about abuse including emotional, physical, sexual abuse and neglect. Childline provides a vital service to children who need to talk, but our counsellors can only help and support them if children have the confidence to speak out.

The NSPCC’s Schools Service has staff and volunteers who visit primary schools to share important safeguarding information through our Speak Out Stay Safe workshops. They might already have visited your child’s school, where they would have delivered age-appropriate sessions to help children understand and identify types of abuse and how to speak out about any issues so they can get help if needed.

Our volunteers come from all kinds of backgrounds and are all ages. One 79-year-old former teacher recently spoke about her 12 years with the Schools Service, which helped her keep busy since her husband’s death. She said: “The information we deliver empowers children to seek help. Knowing we’re giving them vital messages on how to keep safe is the best feeling. Being a schools service volunteer will give you the reward of helping children you meet.”

Our volunteers in Yorkshire are all amazing but we need more to be able to reach every school and every child and help us protect a generation of children from abuse and neglect. Current volunteers tell us they love the training they received, the support they get from their teams, but also knowing they’ave made a positive difference for even just one child.

Our Speak Out Stay Safe workshops can have a real impact. In some sessions, children have spoken up and disclosed abuse. Our volunteers are trained to sensitively handle this, but they’re also given support themselves to ensure they can deal with what they’ve heard. This training is essential and extensive, and for that reason we ask volunteers to commit to staying with us at least a year. You’ll only be asked to visit schools a few days each month to share our Speak Out Stay Safe messaging, and we’ll do our best to work around your schedule.

Our Childline counsellors are amazing and the children who contact us are courageous, but our Schools Service volunteers play a vital role in ensuring our messaging is shared with those who need it most. To find out more about volunteering for the NSPCC Schools Service go to nspcc.org.uk and click ‘Support Us’.