Youth Volunteering

Our Youth Volunteer Scheme ran until June 2024.  It offered fun opportunities for young people ages 14-18 to gain practical nature conservation experience in Hertfordshire and Middlesex

What did the youth volunteer scheme involve? 

Programmes usually started in October and sessions ran on a weekend day, once a month for sixth months.  

Youth volunteers learned all about the habitats where they were working in e.g. woodland, grassland and carried out different tasks to keep it healthy. They also learned how to use a variety of hand tools. 

Participants got to meet other like-minded young people and spend time with knowledgeable conservation volunteers.  

Herts & Middlesex Wildlife Trust collaborated with local volunteer groups to support them to offer youth volunteer schemes on their patch... 

Youth Volunteering on the Batchwood Estate (St Albans) 

Over two years, Friends of Batchwood, supported by Herts and Middlesex Wildlife Trust established a youth volunteer scheme for students completing their Duke of Edinburgh Award to carry out practical woodland conservation work on Batchwood Estate. 

Friends of Batchwood is a volunteer group which collaborates with St Albans City and District Council, Countryside Management Service [CMS] and Everyone Active to manage the Batchwood Estate. The estate is a fantastic local resource supporting an 11-acre bluebell wood, habitat to a number of indicator species for ancient woodland.  

The youth volunteers got together once a month for six months and carried out tasks which were for the benefit of local wildlife and include scrub clearance, coppicing and dead hedging. For these tasks they had to learn how to use a variety of tools.  

So far 17 young people completed this scheme, here is what a couple of them thought of their experience:  

‘it’s really cool to see everything you've done in a session and see what you’ve done to help the forest’ 

- Duke of Edinburgh Volunteer, Archie Whitman 

‘Now I feel a greater urge to care for the wildlife surrounding us and preserve it for the future and the better of the wildlife, and the following generations.’  

- Duke of Edinburgh Volunteer, Saharsh Lakshmanan 

Youth volunteering on the River Colne 

In 2024, Herts and Middlesex Wildlife Trust, Rediscovering the River Colne and Community Connections CIC launched a youth volunteer scheme where young people learned to carry out river conservation work along the River Colne.  

Rediscovering the River Colne is a Watford Borough Council led project to improve the River Colne and its green corridor for local people and wildlife. 

Community Connection Projects CIC is a not for profit company who carry out land and river management projects in Watford. They work along the river Colne and often collaborate with local schools and community groups. 

Volunteers attended once a month for six months and learned about different methods of river management, became confident using hand tools and carried out tasks such as coppicing, river litter picks, invasive species control and dead-hedging. 

Alongside the scheme, the volunteers had the opportunity to achieve AQA Unit Awards that specifically recognised their achievements and learning while volunteering.