Volunteer with us!
Helping young people learn to code is hugely rewarding. If you can offer your time for two hours on a Wednesday evening, we'd love to hear from you!
Apply to volunteerWho we're looking for
Prewired is 100% volunteer-run and we can always use more help! We are looking for people who:
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Enjoy working with young people and care about their learning about technology
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Are respectful, reliable, and communicative
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Can commit to attending at least 1 session a month (on average)
You do not need to know how to code to volunteer at Prewired. We need both technical mentors, who can sit down with attendees and get into the weeds of their projects, as well as guidance mentors, who focus on safeguarding and engagement.
We have a very wide range of attendees, aged 7-17. Some are absolute beginners just starting out in Scratch, others come to us to practice their skills because their school lacks a computing teacher, and a few are advanced well beyond their years, writing in C or programming microcontrollers. Some come with their friends and see Prewired as much as a social club as a place for learning; others take their chance to focus on their individual projects and only ask for help when needed.
They are all welcome—and so are you, if you like working with young people and want to further their learning about computing and technology.
Read on for more details about the different roles we have available.
Technical mentors
Technical mentors use their coding and/or tinkering experience to support and guide attendees during our events. Tasks include:
- Providing technical guidance to attendees working on their own projects
- Helping new attendees find something to work on
- Setting up and cleaning before and after sessions
- Supporting the duty and guidance mentors with maintaining a safe and respectful environment
You do not need prior teaching experience. However, you should enjoy working with young people and feel confident taking initiative to support them.
Guidance mentors
Guidance mentors support and encourage attendees to participate during the sessions and provide administrative and coordinative support. Tasks include:
- Welcoming new attendees and helping them settle in
- Providing basic support to our youngest attendees
- Encouraging attendees to participate and helping mantain a safe and respectful environment
- Acting as duty mentor for some sessions, dealing with non-coding problems such as unwell or upset attendees
No coding experience is required but prior experience working with children is a plus.
Junior mentors
Interested in mentoring but not yet 18 years old? We have a limited capacity for Junior Mentors, older teenagers who help younger attendees with their projects but do not have the safeguarding responsibilities of adult mentors. Feel free to reach out to us if you're interested in this role and we'll set up a chat to see if this would be suitable for you. It helps if you're already familiar with Prewired as an attendee.
If you are looking to volunteer as a Junior Mentor because you are seeking a particular certification, such as the Duke of Edinburgh Award, let us know as well and we'd be happy to support you in that to the extent that we're able to.
What are duty mentors?
At each session, one mentor takes on the role of Duty Mentor. They bear final responsibility for its running and deal with any problems not involving coding, such as unwell or upset attendees. If you've volunteered with us for a while, you're more than welcome to join the Duty Mentor team, but this is optional and not a responsibility that will ever be asked of you if you'd rather not have it.
Junior mentors cannot act as a duty mentor.
How to join
Interested? Please fill out the following form:
Apply to volunteerAfter you submit, one of us will reach out to you to invite you along to a taster session, so you can see how we operate in practice. If afterwards you'd still like to join and we think you're a good fit, we will start the induction process.
First, all of our volunteers are required to become members of the Protecting Vulnerable Groups (PVG) Scheme in accordance with Disclosure Scotland. We work with Volunteer Scotland to arrange this, free of charge. When you have received your PVG, we will invite you and any other upcoming mentors to our mentor training where we share tips on how to make the most out of Prewired and walk you through our safeguarding policies. After this training, we will add you to our workspace and you can start signing up for sessions!
Note that all volunteers need to comply with our Child Protection as well as our Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion policies.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us at [email protected].
