Citizens Advice Scotland and Young Scot join forces
At Young Scot, we are thrilled to be launching a new partnership with the Citizens Advice network in Scotland – Scotland's largest provider of independent advice.
Together, we will be working to ensure that young people have access to the highest-quality information, advice and support – alongside volunteering opportunities to help them fulfill their potential.
The Citizens Advice network in Scotland is made of up 59 independent and local Citizens Advice Bureaux, and a team of specialist energy and water caseworkers called the Extra Help Unit. It also includes Citizens Advice Scotland (CAS) – the national umbrella body which runs the 'Advice for Scotland' website, helps support national services, and campaigns for positive change on behalf of consumers and citizens.
Access to information & campaigns
The advice provided by the Citizens Advice network is free, independent, confidential, impartial and available to everyone. Our partnership will help connect even more young people from across Scotland to CAS' core and consumer advice and information lines. Alongside this, we will run awareness-raising campaigns at key points throughout the year to showcase CAS services relevant to young people – whilst also helping young people further understand their rights. These campaigns will build upon the expert advice that CAS provided to our 'CashChats' video series and 'Money and Me' campaigns.
Volunteering opportunities
We will also work collaboratively to encourage more young people to sign up as local Citizens Advice Bureaux volunteers. There is a Citizens Advice Bureau in almost every community in Scotland, across over 280 locations and working remotely in many cases during the pandemic. They help hundreds of thousands of people every year with advice on issues like social security, employment, housing, debt and utilities.
By encouraging more young people to volunteer in their local bureau, they will get access to comprehensive bureau training and supervision. This will help them to learn new skills and improve their confidence. This will help to improve their life chances and support them to move into further education or paid work.
"Our exciting new partnership with Citizens Advice Scotland comes at a time when Scotland's young people need it most. Despite lockdown restrictions easing, and the vaccine programme ramping up, the pandemic's longer-term impact on young people's lives is yet to be realised. In partnership with Citizens Advice Scotland, we will ensure that young people get access to specialised advice and support services they need and can trust, support them to exercise their rights, and encourage them to take advantage of opportunities that will help them to thrive." Louise Macdonald OBE, CEO, Young Scot
"We're absolutely delighted to join forces with Young Scot to ensure more young people get access to our free, confidential and impartial advice. We always want to reach and help as many people as possible so we're really looking forward to working with Young Scot."
"As part of this collaboration we also want to do more to encourage opportunities for young people to volunteer for the Citizens Advice Bureau Network. It's a great way to help your community but also to gain skills and experience that can serve you well later in life. In fact, around 49% of volunteers for Citizens Advice Bureau go on to paid employment or further education, so it's a great place for young people to improve their CV while helping others."
"We've worked with Young Scot in the past on lots of our campaigning work, and we know that the issues we'll face coming out of the pandemic are likely to hit young people really hard, so we're excited about this partnership." Derek Mitchell, CAS, Chief Executive