Unfortunately, we do not accept referrals directly from parents or guardians. Children and young people must be referred by professional services, such as teachers, doctors or social workers. We recommend parents contact a professional working with your child and invite them to make a referral. Send them a link to this page where they can find out more.
To make a referral, simply sign your organisation up as a referral partner. This is free and easy to do. Simply visit this page and fill in the form. It will take a few days to process, and then we will contact you with a link to our secure online referral portal.
Yes absolutely! Please email us at info@waveproject.co.uk and provide the full name of your organisation. We will send the referral link without delay.
There is no cost for the child or their family. We ask referral partners for a commitment fee of £150 towards the cost of a surf therapy course. This represents around 15% of the full cost of the course. This fee is invoiced to the referral partner, and is invoiced after the referral is made. If the child does not take up their place on the course, the fee is refunded.
Our age range is 8 to 18 for most projects. Recently we have had funding to support surf therapy for young adults aged 18 to 24, but currently this is only in West Cornwall, London and the Tynemouth.
We aim to contact the parents/carers of young people within 2 weeks of the referral coming in. However, during busy times this can be a little late. If your referral went in more than 2 weeks ago, please contact your local coordinator via the location page or email info@waveproject.co.uk
You should have received an email asking you to complete your online training, you might have to check your junk box for this!
We also aim to contact prospective volunteers to say hi within 2 weeks of them expressing an interest in volunteering. However, during busy times this can be a little late.
As a charity, we are keen to support as many young people as possible. To do this sustainably, we have to start providing in new locations in a conscientious way; we wish we could support every young person within the geographical location but, at the moment, that is not possible.
Yes please! Wetsuits can be sent to our shop in Newquay, Cornwall or our national offices in Scarborough, North Yorkshire and Dunbar, Scotland. The address is 6 Fore Street, Newquay, TR7 1LN.
If you cannot deliver your wetsuit to one of these locations, please contact us and we will try to arrange collection. Damaged wetsuits will be repaired or recycled – nothing will be sent to landfill.
Yes we work with volunteers from 14 years old. Please visit this page for more information about volunteering, or to sign up.
Yes. We offer bespoke adaptive surf sessions for people with physical disabilities at our hubs in Croyde, North Devon; Newquay, Cornwall and Scarborough, North Yorkshire. Private or group sessions using adaptive surfing equipment, if required, can be arranged by our specialist team. For more information including locations and pricing, please email: adaptivesurfing@waveproject.co.uk.
Please contact our fundraising team by emailing fundraising@waveproject.co.uk with your details and one of our team will get back to you. Alternatively, make a donation via our website by clicking here.
Our surf therapy projects are located as follows (West to East): Cornwall, Devon, Northern Ireland, Bristol, Dorset, Isle of Wight, London, Brighton, Scarborough, Tynemouth, Dunbar, St Andrews. You can more information about each local project on this page.
Surf club is open to all young people who have completed one of our Surf Therapy courses. There is no limit to the number of sessions surf club members can attend once they have joined, and they will continue to be supported by our network of trained surf mentors.
If your child has completed a course and would like to join Surf Club, go here to get started. You can also chat with your local project coordinator about this. There is no cost to joining the club. Session fees are £10 or £5 concessions.
No, they will be supported by a mentor throughout the course. However, for safety reasons our teams will need to know if a child can’t swim, so please make this clear to the Project Coordinator when working through your child’s risk assessment prior to starting the course.
After signing up to be a volunteer via our website, you will receive a link to take part in our online training. We ask all our volunteers, regardless of role, to complete this training. It will give you a background into the organisation, inform you on what we do, and how your support helps change the lives of our young people. During this training we also cover confidentiality and safeguarding.
If you are looking to volunteer with us in the water, you will be contacted by your local coordinator with dates of the local training, which will cover examples of the types of young people we work with, as well as practical training on how to support young people in the water; prepare to get yourself wet on this!
Depending on the role you want to support with, there will also be other training available including speaker training, events training, GDPR training for admin volunteers. Once you are a registered volunteer, please speak to your Project Coordinator for more information.
Anybody involved with the charity, including volunteers, must have a police check. The cost of this is covered by the charity.