Can you Help? Volunteering opportunities for aspiring midwives aged 16-18?

Creating Opportunities: A Volunteering Pathway into Midwifery for Young People
A new, accessible volunteering pathway is being developed specifically for 16–18-year-olds who are passionate about pursuing a career in midwifery. This initiative aims to equip young people with valuable skills, practical experience, and insight into the realities of working in health and care—while making a meaningful contribution to their communities. It also responds to a pressing national need: building a more diverse and prepared future workforce in maternal health.

Why This Matters
Midwifery is a vital, highly skilled profession that plays a central role in supporting women and families. Yet for many young people, particularly those without personal connections in healthcare, the journey into midwifery can feel out of reach. Gaining experience is a key requirement for university applications, but opportunities to volunteer—especially in clinical settings—can be scarce, oversubscribed, or restricted by age.

This pathway aims to remove those barriers by opening up alternative routes to build experience, confidence, and transferable skills. By working in community-facing roles through voluntary and charitable organisations, young people can begin their journey toward midwifery in a supportive and accessible way.

A Role for the VCSE Sector - Can you offer support?
We know that voluntary and community organisations are rich with opportunities for meaningful engagement. Placements don’t need to be directly in maternity care. What matters is creating space for young volunteers to learn, grow, and demonstrate key qualities like empathy, motivation, and a willingness to contribute.

Potential placements could include:

• Hospitals (in non-clinical areas)
• Care homes
• Women’s centres and shelters
• Housing and homelessness charities
• Domestic abuse support organisations
• Family Hubs
• Food banks
• Hospices

These experiences can help young people develop confidence, communication, teamwork, and problem-solving skills—all of which are essential in midwifery and across the wider care sector.

Objectives of the Programme: Inspire the Next Generation of Midwives and offer early exposure to caring roles, helping young people explore and understand the range of opportunities in health and care careers.

Build Stronger Communities: Enable young people to contribute meaningfully to community-based projects, strengthening their understanding of the VCSE sector’s impact.

Create Mentorship Pathways: Link young volunteers with professionals from across the NHS, ICB, LMNS and VCSE networks, providing guidance, encouragement and real-world insight.

Develop Essential Life Skills: Support young people to build communication, organisation, and resilience—skills they can carry into future training, employment or education.

This initiative is not just about supporting individuals—it’s about creating a ripple effect across communities, healthcare systems, and the VCSE sector. By working together, we can help shape a more inclusive and better-prepared midwifery workforce, rooted in real-life experience and community values.