Volunteer For Us

Our volunteers bring a wide range of skills, experience and commitment to our work. Some have had personal experience of mental health or substance use issues and some bring professional or vocational expertise.

If you would like to help us with our work with children and young people and be a part of Amy’s legacy then we would love to hear from you.

Amy's Place

Amy’s Place is our award-winning recovery housing project for young women. It’s a place where they can be safe and have time to learn the skills they need to re-adapt into everyday life and maintain their recovery.

We currently have the following specific volunteer vacancies available, but please do contact us if you have any other skills or opportunities that you would like to offer;

Resilience Programme

Our 'lived-experience' volunteers are passionate about helping young people make wise and informed choices.

Volunteers working in our resilience activities have all overcome significant personal issues. Those that have struggled with alcohol and/or drugs are now living substance-free lives.

They use their own experiences of substance misuse and recovery to educate students, parents and teachers about the underlying reasons why some young people use drugs and alcohol to change the way they feel, and what can be done to prevent this.

Volunteers gain confidence and self-esteem, improve their presentation and interpersonal skills, and increase their access to training, education and employment.

All our team members graduate from an accredited training programme. To be able to participate, volunteers must be in stable recovery and pass disclosure and barring checks (DBS).

Volunteers go on to do great things

Volunteers said their experiences with the programme could be applied to further training opportunities (82%), further and higher education (87%), and paid employment opportunities (84%)*.

75% of volunteers said they were more confident and 76% saw improved self-esteem following participation*.

Volunteers reported improved planning skills (62%), interpersonal skills (75%), presentation skills (64%) and communication skills (71%)*.

*Stats from Year 2 of an independent evaluation of the Amy Winehouse Foundation Resilience Programme, led by a team based between Harvard University and the University of Bath, 2016

It’s one of the best things I’ve done in four years of volunteering. All the work I’d done previously was geared toward helping adults already in addiction so I’m very grateful to have had the chance to maybe help even one young person avoid that.

I’m now in full time employment working with adult offenders but I wouldn’t have got this job if it were not for the experience and support I was given.

"The training was so supportive and really interesting. The close supervision from my line managers was so valuable, it’s something that we all need in early recovery.

AWF really supported me to do my first share in a school. I always describe the feeling of coming out of a school after a share as being something like no drug could ever give someone – you feel on top of the world.

I started to get a sense that I was really helping people, especially when young people would come to speak to me after the session and share their own experiences, seeking out help and support for themselves.

When I first came into recovery I was terrified of professional people, but the respect from staff in schools and other agencies built my confidence and self-esteem so that I am used to working alongside professional people these days.

I felt like I was back in the real world and in amongst all the other people going about their jobs. Working with AWF made me feel like a million dollars.

"I have suffered with addiction since the age of 12 when I first started using mind altering substances. In 2016, I hit my lowest point [and] my mother wrote a letter to the Amy Winehouse Foundation asking for help.

I was offered a place in a rehabilitation centre [where] I was finding new things out about myself – aspirations and passions that had been clouded for years.

I was offered the chance to go into local schools and colleges to share my story in the hope that it might help somebody else.

I began training…and I got to know volunteer coordinators and staff who helped support me…and most of all they lit the fire in my stomach which made me want to better myself and work in the young people’s substance misuse service."

Kelly's story

I truly believe that if I had someone to speak to when I was younger—someone I could relate to, an adult who understood my struggles—my life might not have taken the path it did. I may have sought help sooner.

That’s one of the main reasons I started volunteering. And it has allowed me to transform those difficult years into an experience that can help guide and educate young people today.

It gives me the opportunity to use my personal experiences with addiction and years of struggling with mental health to educate young people on how to seek help and recognise issues in their own lives.

At 24, I feel uniquely equipped to connect with young people, as it wasn’t long ago that I was in their shoes, facing many of the same challenges. When I was younger, all I needed was to feel seen and heard myself. I felt so misunderstood and struggled to comprehend what was happening in my own mind.

So I know that simply telling young people not to take drugs because it could be fatal isn’t enough to educate or help them. What they need is honesty about drugs and alcohol, an understanding of where they can seek help, and tools they can use to cope with their personal issues — without turning to substances as a way of dealing with things.

Most importantly, they need a safe space where they can feel heard and understood. That’s what I wanted. And it’s always my goal now. And by building this kind of trusted, trusting relationship with the Amy Winehouse Foundation, I know that volunteers like me can really help young people.

We can give them the support and guidance they need.