My journey to becoming a Forest School Support Volunteer<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Whilst looking for a psychology-related volunteering opportunity to enhance my CV, I came across an advert on UWE InfoHub <\/a>for a Forest School Support volunteer. I would definitely recommend InfoHub as a platform for finding volunteering, work experience or paid jobs, as there are lots of great roles are posted on there – including ones that you can\u2019t find on a generic online search. It is also really easy to use the filters to find what you are looking for. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I had never worked with children before but I love the outdoors and had become really interested in developmental and child psychology, so I thought that this role would be really enjoyable and beneficial to my career pathway too. After successfully applying, I met with Nickie, a Level 3 Forest School Leader and the manager of Mud Pies, who matched me up with two weekly sessions. One for home-educated children with a range of additional needs, and one for girls with autism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My role as a volunteer was to work with Nickie to facilitate child-led play. This meant giving the children freedom to explore and let their natural curiosity flourish, rather than deciding what they do or organising structured activities. A typical session for me might involve encouraging a child to climb higher in the tree, supervising them while they practice with a flint and steel, or joining in with their \u201cvelociraptor mum\u201d game! It was really rewarding developing relationships with the children and seeing them grow in confidence and ability. I had so much fun at Forest School and it was always something to look forward to in my week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I loved embracing the outdoors and sharing this with the children; the smiles on their faces when they realised how muddy they had become after \u201cmudsliding\u201d in the rain were just priceless.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Becoming a Forest School support volunteer was something completely new to me and a chance to leave my comfort zone, which in itself really built my confidence and self-belief. Volunteering was also a way for me to bring my university studies to life and apply what I had learned. I actually wrote an essay for my Psychology course on the benefits of Forest School for child development. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Volunteering with Mud Pies<\/a> undoubtedly played a massive part in my success in gaining my sandwich placement, an exciting role working within the clinical therapy team at Cotswold Chine School, which I am hoping will in turn maximise my employment prospects when I graduate. I really believe that being a Forest School volunteer has had a massive positive impact on my professional development, and I loved every minute of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Natalia Jarvis, BSc (Hons) Psychology I spent ten months volunteering for Mud Pie Explorers, a Bristol-based Community Interest Company, that runs Forest School sessions for children in local green spaces. Forest Schools are child-led and offer a holistic way for children to develop skills and improve their confidence in a woodland setting. My journey … Continue reading “Volunteering at Mud Pie Explorers was key to my professional development\u2026 and lots of fun!”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":479,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[9,171,216,22,59,24],"class_list":["post-427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-volunteering","tag-career-journey","tag-charity","tag-info-hub","tag-uwe-student","tag-volunteering","tag-work-experience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/careers-enterprise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/careers-enterprise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/careers-enterprise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/careers-enterprise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/66"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/careers-enterprise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=427"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/careers-enterprise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":532,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/careers-enterprise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427\/revisions\/532"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/careers-enterprise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/careers-enterprise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/careers-enterprise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/careers-enterprise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/careers-enterprise\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2022\/05\/Picture1001.png\")
My experience of volunteering with Mud Pies<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
What did I gain from my experience?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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