Volunteer/Job Opportunities

Volunteers

We offer  a range of volunteer opportunities to get involved. Many of our volunteers have ended up in paid work. If you are interested in volunteering with us please contact Michelle via email at [email protected].

Position:  Apprentice

Aims of Job

Friend and Places apprentice will be expected to build up skills and ability with working the organisation to support day to day group’s activities from break with mates and support friends and Places friends to meet up.  You will be working as a team with clear roles and outcomes to fulfil the organisational aims.

You will be offered training through South Essex adult college course in NVQ in Health and Social Care as well as on the job training to enhance skills and ability.

As part of your role,  you will contacting families and picking up referrals for new clients to attend break with Mates. You will support all the monthly group activities as well as day trips in the holidays and will be working with the coordinator of Break with mates and offering administration as part of this role and to enable back up and support to the coordinator.

Tasks will be set in agreement with Friends and Places Coordinator and Break with mates as well as Director of both organisation who will be your on-site assessor.

As part of your role is to enable the maintained of the on line database and risk assessments for the services. To support the build-up, of a referral system for friendships outside of Southend as well as in Southend. The apprentice role is to model the values of the organisation through person centred working and community connecting, and ensures that these run throughout the organisation including its policies, processes and procedures.

Job Description

• To network with social workers, schools, colleges, family workers, advocacy and family support groups to advertise and market the project
• To run classes at schools and colleges to outline friends and meeting friends outside of the class environment
• To identify clear, equitable, transparent referrals systems and waiting lists.
• To liaise with volunteers bureaus to recruit young people for the project and market this to young people less than 25 years
• To offer information advice and guidance on what is going on in the community, resources, networks and support groups
• To keep finance records of groups
• To keep a clear database of young people over 18 and less than 25 years old
• To support with help with CEO suitable staff to support the service via Direct Payments
• To liaise with volunteers to support group work in the community
• To meet with groups to get a clear evaluation of what worked well and what can be changed
• To help recruit volunteers to the service for both friends and places and break with mates
• To keep clear information on risk for any individuals that attends group for all staff working with young adults and highlight risk on a need to know bases
• To build a robust organisation
  To take a lead on safeguarding, ensure that Safeguarding issues are the responsibility of all staff, and that all staff is kept up to date with the safeguarding policy, training, and procedures.
• To recruit staff to identified posts, to ensure all staff are supervised and trained as necessary, to hold regular team meetings, and to deal with HR issues following the necessary advice as they arise.
• Send out contracts of employment for staff and volunteers, Organising CRB, references and robust checks for all staff.
• To keep a detailed attendance list of who attends what groups
• To keep feedback from groups and what people want to do next
• To take the lead in supporting groups leaders in managing the groups and feedback to CEO
• To keep a clear record of costing for each group to look at breakeven policy
• Complete minimum standards in training for supporting the group – Safeguarding adults, Mental Capacity Training, Person Centred Planning

Person Specification

Attitudes

• Belief in the importance of support which recognises and understands individuals, demonstrated through the use of person centred planning, self-directed support and community navigating.
• Belief in community solutions not segregated services.
• An ability to respect the decisions and choices of others, even when they are different from our own
• Risk assessments which enable not stifle.

Experience

• Experience of supporting people with learning disabilities and their families to identify their positive future, and to work out how to get there
• Experience of developing communities; and connecting people in positive ways to find lasting and meaningful roles in their own communities.

Skills

• Good organiser
• Good at understanding how to identify and monitor outcomes based on each individual needs and requirements
• Understanding of self-directed support, and how people and their families can use money creatively to get the best outcomes. This can be acquired from training from CEO
• Office skills keeping databases, attendance records, hours spent, budget planner.
• To be able to give clear constructive feedback to CEO if things are not working well and why?
• People development including training, coaching and mentoring for staff to understand the Friends and Places way of working.
• ICT skills and an ability to keep organised, up to date records, databases and office systems.
• Able to write reports and make information accessible in the most appropriate way for the receiver of the information

Download the above Job Description here.

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Download the application (Word format)