Frequently Asked Questions

Who will contact me?

You will be contacted by one of our Enterprise Coordinators who works in your region. They will contact you to discuss your involvement further and identify suitable activities for you to get involved with.

How soon will I be contacted?

You will be contacted within 5-7 working days.

I have never done this type of thing with a school or college before – am I suitable?

You do not need to have previous experience – a number of careers activities are informal. Your experience of the world of work and sharing your own career journey is invaluable in helping young people to shape their thinking about their career path. You will have the support of the Enterprise Coordinator and school/college and can work with them to agree an activity that suits your experience.

Do I need to sign up through my employer?

Individual volunteers are able to sign up to be involved, as well as a group of employees or the entire business. If you work in a large organisation, you might have someone responsible for schools’ outreach so do check internally (perhaps with your HR team) if there is a programme you can volunteer through.

Is a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check needed?

The requirements to protect young people vary depending on the length and type of activity being undertaken (see below). However, the key point is that the school will determine what is required for the activities you are offering to undertake and will let you know what (if anything) you need to do to comply.

In principle:

• If you are working as a volunteer in a school and the activity with young people is supervised and infrequent (less than 3 times a month), it is unlikely the school will require an enhanced DBS check, but they may still ask for you to complete one.
• If you are volunteering more frequently (3 times or month +) in schools and the work is supervised, an enhanced DBS check may be required.
• If you are working unsupervised and delivering any form of regulated activity to a young person or group of young people, the school will require an enhanced DBS check with a Children Barred list check.
• In all cases it would be down to the individual schools to ensure the safeguarding of the children is acceptable and in line with their safeguarding policy and the statutory guidance Keeping Children Safe in Education.

As you may be working with young people in virtual sessions hosted and monitored by their teachers (not in all instances), it is unlikely that you will need to have DBS check. In the case of blended programmes where a young person is in the workplace; things may be slightly different. Talk to the school or college - they will guide you on all scenarios and the DSL will make the decision as to whether a check is needed or not. You can also access our Safeguarding guide here.

Contact us

If you have any other questions about getting involved or the Give an hour campaign, please contact our Employer team on employers@careersandenterprise.co.uk.