Volunteer with spunout

spunout’s motto is ‘By Young People, For Young People.’ By volunteering with spunout, you’re helping to make sure that the content we have on the site, and the work we do offline, is what young people want and need. You can help young people across Ireland to get informed about issues in their lives, and to feel supported, empowered and less alone.

Our volunteers play a key role in the organisation, by helping to make sure that spunout truly is by young people, for young people.

​What are the volunteering roles?​

Content contributor

Content contributors create content for the spunout website. This can be articles, videos or podcasts. The content created is posted on the spunout website for young people across Ireland to see. You’ll see all the articles, videos and podcasts created by our content contributors in our Voices section.

By sharing articles, videos or podcasts on spunout you can help other young people in Ireland feel supported and empowered. You do not need any experience to apply for this role. We’ll help with every step of the way with resources, training and one-to-one support.

Proofreader

Many of the articles on spunout are created by our content team. They put a lot of time and energy into researching the topics, writing about them in an accessible way and having them reviewed by professionals.

Before the articles are posted on the site, our proofreaders review them to make sure they’re easy to understand, informative and what young people want to know about.

Our proofreaders provide feedback directly to the content team, who then update the articles or videos based on this feedback. This can be done in your own time and at your own pace.

Action Panel

The Action Panels guide the work of spunout by highlighting what issues young people need more information on. You can find out more about the Action Panel role here.

Practicalities of the role:

Both the content contributor role and the proofreader role can be done in your own time and at your own pace. There is no minimum time commitment, although we find people get more out of the roles if they aim to send in at least three pieces of content per year, and/or aim to review 20 pieces of content per year. These roles can be done from home, a cafe, or anywhere else, you do not need to come into the spunout office.

What is the induction process like?

All our volunteers go through a short induction training programme. This is to help you get ready for your volunteering role so you feel comfortable, confident and excited about volunteering with us.

From the first Tuesday of the month, you’ll receive a weekly email with some videos and resources for you to look at. It will take between 1-2 hours to view the videos and review the resources. This should be completed by the end of the week to move onto the next part of the training.

The induction training lasts four weeks for content contributors and two weeks for proofreaders.

What support and opportunities will I have?

As a spunout volunteer, we have a number of supports and opportunities to help you with your role.

Training

We’ve developed a number of resources to help our volunteers with their role. These include our spunout training videos series as well as our guides on submitting articles, videos or podcasts.

Throughout the year, we also run a number of free face-to-face and online workshops for our volunteers. In the past these have focused on inclusive and accessible language, writing for the website, developing your content ideas, destigmatising mental health, climate change and climate justice, and LGBTI+ inclusion, among other topics.

One-to-one support:

Our Voices Editor Katie Donohoe is here to support you throughout your volunteering role. You can get in touch with Katie at any time if you need support or information. Katie’s job is to help make your volunteering experience the best it can be.

Network of young people

We have over 200 volunteers in spunout who you can get to know throughout your volunteering experience. We encourage our volunteers to work together on projects they’re interested in, support our volunteers to get involved in exciting external opportunities, and to support each other while involved with spunout.

Apply to be a spunout volunteer

Our volunteering roles are open to anyone aged 16-25 and living in Ireland. You can apply for either or both of the roles.

Application process

• Step 1: Fill in our volunteer application form
• Step 2: We’ll let you know by the end of the month if you have been successful or not. If you have been successful, we’ll talk you through your induction
• Step 3: Complete the online induction
• Step 4: Once you’ve completed your induction, you can start your spunout volunteering role.

Frequently Asked Questions

FAQ: What are spunout’s child protection obligations

spunout has a responsibility to protect children and vulnerable adults. If we receive content that leads us to believe that an identifiable child (under 18) or vulnerable adult was, is, or may be being abused, neglected or at risk of harm, spunout has a responsibility to pass this information onto social work teams and/or the Gardaí. Read more about our Child Safeguarding Statement. If you have any questions or queries, please visit Tusla.ie or contact [email protected].