Mental health support worker volunteer roles in aberdeen, aberdeenshire

Nomad Health Initiative

Nomad Health Initiative is an early-stage venture building data-driven access to Healthcare for last-mile Pastoral Communities in Northern Kenya.

Nomad Health Initiative addresses the interconnected social and environmental challenges that affect the health and survival of nomadic and pastoralist communities in Northern Kenya, particularly in regions like Moyale and North Horr. These challenges include:

1. Limited Access to Healthcare • Challenge: Nomadic families live in remote, scattered Manyattas, often over 50 km from the nearest health facility. • Impact: Women miss antenatal care, babies remain unimmunized, and preventable illnesses go untreated, leading to high infant and maternal mortality rates.

2. Marginalization of Nomadic Communities • Challenge: Pastoralist populations are often excluded from national health planning due to their mobility and lack of infrastructure. • Impact: They are underserved in health budgets, data collection, and public health outreach, widening the health equity gap.

3. Malnutrition and Child Mortality • Challenge: Chronic drought, food insecurity, and displacement have led to rising malnutrition rates among children under 5. • Impact: Increased cases of stunting, wasting, and preventable deaths — often undetected until critical.

4. Climate Change and Displacement • Challenge: Recurring droughts and resource-based conflicts displace families and limit access to water and food. • Impact: Health services become harder to deliver; mothers and children are more exposed to disease and mental stress.

5. Stigma and Invisibility of Disability • Challenge: Children with disabilities in pastoralist communities are often hidden or neglected due to stigma and lack of support. • Impact: They miss out on early intervention, education, and basic health services.

Nomad Health Initiative delivers last-mile, culturally sensitive healthcare to nomadic and pastoralist communities in Northern Kenya who are often left out of the formal health system. We professionalize frontline health workers and digitizing the healthcare access, on a path to reach more and more pastoral women and children.

Board Directors

Volunteer Role Description (remote, unpaid)

To help shape the next phase of our growth, we are seeking dynamic, mission-driven individuals to join our Board of Directors. We’re looking for individuals who can fill these volunteer roles:

1. Fundraising, Partnerships & Strategy

2. Mental Health & Youth Wellness

3. Policy, Governance, and Government Partnerships

4. Digital Innovation and Blockchain

5. Child and Maternal Health

The target persons should be able to work at the intersection of Climate Change, Technology, and Healthcare for last mile pastoral children, youth and women. Young people, and persons with disabilities are encouraged to apply.

Weekly Time Commitment

4-6 hours per week

Duration of Volunteer Role (remote)

6+ months

Nomad Health Initiative

Nomad Health Initiative is an early-stage venture building data-driven access to Healthcare for last-mile Pastoral Communities in Northern Kenya.

Nomad Health Initiative addresses the interconnected social and environmental challenges that affect the health and survival of nomadic and pastoralist communities in Northern Kenya, particularly in regions like Moyale and North Horr. These challenges include:

1. Limited Access to Healthcare • Challenge: Nomadic families live in remote, scattered Manyattas, often over 50 km from the nearest health facility. • Impact: Women miss antenatal care, babies remain unimmunized, and preventable illnesses go untreated, leading to high infant and maternal mortality rates.

2. Marginalization of Nomadic Communities • Challenge: Pastoralist populations are often excluded from national health planning due to their mobility and lack of infrastructure. • Impact: They are underserved in health budgets, data collection, and public health outreach, widening the health equity gap.

3. Malnutrition and Child Mortality • Challenge: Chronic drought, food insecurity, and displacement have led to rising malnutrition rates among children under 5. • Impact: Increased cases of stunting, wasting, and preventable deaths — often undetected until critical.

4. Climate Change and Displacement • Challenge: Recurring droughts and resource-based conflicts displace families and limit access to water and food. • Impact: Health services become harder to deliver; mothers and children are more exposed to disease and mental stress.

5. Stigma and Invisibility of Disability • Challenge: Children with disabilities in pastoralist communities are often hidden or neglected due to stigma and lack of support. • Impact: They miss out on early intervention, education, and basic health services.

Nomad Health Initiative delivers last-mile, culturally sensitive healthcare to nomadic and pastoralist communities in Northern Kenya who are often left out of the formal health system. We professionalize frontline health workers and digitizing the healthcare access, on a path to reach more and more pastoral women and children.

Digital Innovation

Volunteer Role Description (remote, unpaid)

You’ll help us explore and integrate practical tech solutions — from AI to blockchain — that improve how we deliver services, especially in health and learning systems. You don’t need to know everything, but curios and creative!

Your roles will include:

1. You'll support us in identifying and testing technology tools (like AI chatbots, digital IDs, or LMS platforms) that can improve how we reach communities, especially in health and education.

2. You’ll help us think through how to set up or improve systems we use — such as Learning Management Systems (LMS) or mobile health tools — so they’re easy to use and actually serve people’s needs.

3. You’ll help us figure out how to use data better — whether that’s making dashboards, identifying patterns using simple AI tools, or showing teams how to track their impact more clearly.

4. You’ll guide us in making sure our digital tools are safe, ethical, and inclusive — especially when we’re dealing with sensitive health information or working with vulnerable communities.

5. Whether it’s running a quick training session, reviewing a platform, or sharing an article or resource, you’ll help build our team’s confidence in using tech creatively and meaningfully.

Weekly Time Commitment

4-6 hours per week

Duration of Volunteer Role (remote)

6+ months

This is an opportunity to become Chair of a Charity which has recently celebrated its 10th anniversary. If you are someone who is looking to make a “real difference” for mothers/birthing people and their families facing one of the most challenging and unexpected periods of their lives, then we would like to hear from you.  We are also looking for a Chair who can lead and “harness” the range of skills present within our existing Board members, who come with a range of experience.

Now into our second decade as a charity, it is exciting time to join Mummy’s Star as the Chairperson. We have broadened the conversation about cancer and pregnancy nationwide, and internationally too despite our small stature. We now must sustain what we have built and help take the charity to that next level where we can elevate the voices of those we support, so that their needs are not only understood, but are also prioritised and used to inform policy and planning.

Here at Youth4Youth, we have grown a strong, tight-knit community of individuals who are passionate about making a difference and improving the lives of young people across the UK. Our growing team of volunteers all contribute, significantly, to the impact that we have as a charity on our direct beneficiaries, regardless of the department that they work in of the level of time that they are able to commit. Our services primarily offer a peer-support network to young people right across the UK, allowing them to access a peer mentor who is of a similar age to them and somebody that they feel more comfortable speaking with.

If successful, you will be joining a growing team of diverse, but likeminded individuals, collaborating to increase the reach of the Charity and improve support provisions available to young people. All of our volunteers and employees are remote workers, but that doesn't stop us keeping in touch and maintaining a strong positive culture amongst our whole team. 

About the role

Our Peer Mentors are at the forefront of our Youth Services delivery, tackling head on the issues that young people are facing everyday. As a Peer Mentor, you will engage with young people who reach out to Youth4Youth for support, taking time to coach and guide them through the difficulties that they are facing. This exciting opportunity, targeted at individuals who are between the ages of 16 and 25, provides young people with the space to directly impact and transform the lives of young people, significantly improving their overall wellbeing.

Ideal candidates are those who are able to commit to regular volunteering activity of at least 2 hours per week (on average) and who are able to comfortably communicate via written e-mail and other remote chat functionalities.

Responsibilities:

Your core responsibilities as a Peer Mentor at Youth4Youth include:

• Building strong, professional relationships with young people seeking mentoring support.
• Demonstrating commitment to the charity by regular volunteer engagement to maintain ongoing communication with young people (which includes responding to young people within an agreed and reasonable time frame).
• Providing light support, advice and guidance to young people in relation to the troubles that they are facing, in line with the resources provided to you by the charity.
• Maintaining professional boundaries with young people and not seeking to offer support beyond your capability that may put a young person at risk.
• Maintaining regular contact with your Youth4Youth supervisor, with the expectation that you will meet at least once per month for a supervision session that involves reflective practice and a focus on your development as a mentor.
• Providing support as part of our Peer Mentor network to colleagues across the Charity who are also directly supporting young people.
• Maintaining compliance with all policies. Most importantly this means maintaining the right level of confidentiality around your conversations with young people and recognising your safeguarding responsibilities in raising concerns as they arise to keep young people safe.

Peer Mentors are also actively encouraged to get involved in fundraising, outreach and social media activities where they feel comfortable and able to.

Skills 

• Strong written communication skills, such as being able to effectively compose a written e-mail in response to a young person.
• Ability to build strong, professional relationships and maintain trust between yourself and a young person, such as through active listening and adapting to the individual needs of different young people.
• Ability to demonstrate empathy to others.
• Ability to work in a challenging environment and recognise when you may need support yourself.
• Proficient in the use of IT tools, such as Microsoft Outlook.

Our mission is to continue to grow towards becoming one of the best charities in the UK. Our aim is to do this by building a diverse team, rich with different backgrounds and perspectives. Therefore, even if you feel you only are a 75% match, we would still love to hear from you. Skills can be learned, but diversity cannot.

Skills development for you:

As a Peer Mentor at Youth4Youth, you will be required to take part and graduate our Youth Services Academy. This program requires an upfront commitment of 10 - 13 hours of training prior to taking on the role of communicating with young people. This investment in you not only equips you with the understanding of what it takes to be a successful peer mentor, and the skills that you will need, but also is an investment in you. This training will provide you with core soft skills that are transferrable to many opportunities, whether that's in everyday life for you, your education setting or your place of work. All Mentors graduating from the Youth Services Academy will be provided with an electronic certificate to demonstrate your successful completion of the program, which can be shared with potential employers.

Benefits of volunteering with Youth4Youth

We recognise that you will be joining us and giving your time as an 'in-kind' donation, but there must be benefits for you too. When joining our team, you will be open to the following benefits:

• Professional and personal development opportunities in a variety of skill areas through volunteering in real roles. This may be general development or tailored to your specific needs or ambitions
• Becoming a member of a strong network of likeminded individuals, spread across the UK, who you can connect with and collaborate with both within and outside of the Charity
• Access to bespoke discounts, specifically designed for non-profit workers and Youth4Youth volunteers
• Opportunities to truly shape the future of the Charity, having a direct influence over the impact that Youth4Youth has on its direct beneficiaries

The hiring process:

Unlike other roles at Youth4Youth, the hiring process has been simplified for peer mentors, recognising the demographic of individuals that we are seeking to fill these positions. To put you at ease, the hiring process includes:

• An initial application, stating your reasons for wishing to become a Peer Mentor
• A remote interview conducted via Microsoft Teams

Successful candidates at this stage will be invited into the final stage of the recruitment process which includes:

• Satisfactory references being received (these do not need to be employment references)
• A satisfactory DBS check being received
• Successful completion of the Youth Services Academy