Brighter Futures
Brighter futures support young people across Scotland to access volunteering opportunities in their local community. We work closely with local charity partners to re-engage young people and work with them to create positive destinations.
Our aim is to bring communities together through volunteering. We work with young people across our three teams who have become disengaged with school who would benefit from exploring different perspectives and activities.
We work closely with many fantastic charities to ensure that placements are suitable for the young person and provide them with the best chance of discovering something meaningful to them and help them to define their space in the community.
We currently run two projects in Edinburgh and one project in Dumfries & Galloway.
One of our projects in Edinburgh consists of working in a mainstream school where we work with both attending and non-attending young people to give them a supported volunteering opportunity away from the school environment and help them to find a space in the community.
Another side of our project in Edinburgh works with young people from a care-experienced background. Working alongside each young person for a longer period to help build resilience and provide each young person a strong foundation through volunteering in the community.
In Dumfries and Galloway North West Community Campus, Brighter Futures provides volunteering opportunities for young people who are struggling to access the curriculum. This project mainly works with non-attenders or those who are struggling with attendance to give them opportunities outside of the school environment.
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You can feel like you’re making an impact on someone’s life. I helped a patient who didn’t know how to use her phone to order a taxi and she way very grateful.
Brighter Futures, NHS Volunteer Champion
Our impact
Brighter Futures St Thomas of Aquins
2024/2025 was a fantastic year for Brighter Futures at St Thomas of Aquins. We were able to provide and support a wide variety of volunteering placements to different age groups throughout the school.
Our supported volunteering took us to Community Cafes, Community art spaces and charity shops. Whilst our Volunteer Champions volunteered for the NHS.
This provided our volunteers with new opportunities, skills and experience in friendly and supportive environments.
Can you chip in to support Brighter Futures?
As you can see, Brighter Futures is doing transformational work supporting secondary school pupils in Edinburgh take their next steps with confidence. Through supported volunteering opportunities and mentoring relationships, we are working with young people facing barriers that can limit their potential.
Your donation will help us deliver this vital work, and go even further by supporting everything that keeps it safe, effective and impactful. This includes safeguarding, volunteer support and tracking the difference we are making in communities.
Chip in what you can afford and help us build brighter futures.
Resources
Brighter Futures Hackathon Event
This write up was created from our 2025 Hackathon event with care experienced young people on issues affecting them.
Get in touch
If you’re interested in volunteering or would like to refer someone to this programme.
Contact the team
T: 07823 413 291
This project is kindly supported by
