Volunteering and Befriending and Officer
Responsible to: Services and Operations Manager
Responsible for: Recruitment and administration of all T&T volunteers, Befriending volunteers
Salary: £23,000pa pro-rata
Contract:1 year in the first instance
Hours: 22.5 hours per week
Location: Based at Time and Talents SE16, plushome visits for befriending matches.
Job Purpose
The post will act as a central point for the recruitment of all volunteers throughout Time and Talents and will administer the application, checking and induction processes for volunteer recruitment.
The post will lead on support of the Befriending service at T&T for older people in Bermondsey and Rotherhithe. The main objective of the service will be to relieve social isolation by providing a volunteer to visit housebound clients at home, co-ordinating telephone befriending or any other befriending initiatives.
Main duties and responsibilities
1)Volunteer recruitment and retention
- Advertise and promote the volunteering opportunities
- Administer the application process, including dealing with enquiries, taking up references, doing DBS checks and running induction sessions
- Keeping records of volunteers and the database up to date and provide monitoring information
- Liaise with other staff about volunteers interested in their projects
- Providing advice and support to other staff on volunteering
2)Befriending Service Delivery
- Identify suitable volunteers for the befriending service
- Work with the Neighbourhood Care Co-ordinator to ensure an appropriate match of volunteer befriender and service user
- Arrange and make befriending matches with volunteers at service user’s homes
- Periodically review matches and deal with any issues that arise in conjunction with Neighbourhood Care Coordinator
3)Monitoring and reporting
- Provide volunteer monitoring information
- Contribute to providing befriending monitoring information and capture case studies for reporting purposes
4)Projects
- Participate in the scoping of new volunteering and befriending initiatives
- Delivery of new projects involving volunteering and befriending
- Represent and promote the organisation positively to all stakeholders, including clients, families and/ or carers, other organisations.
- Proactively attend and contribute to briefings and team meetings as required.
- Pass on relevant information to other team members, using agreed communication procedures; and report to the Services Manager any concerns or incidents in line with the organisations policies and procedures.
- Keep full and accurate records of support provided, including handovers whilst maintaining confidentiality.
- Take part in the wider life of Time and talents including regular events
Additional Responsibilities
- Adhere to T&T’s policies and procedures at all times including Equal Opportunities, Health and Safety, and Safeguarding.
- Work flexibly, including occasional evenings and weekends
- Adhere to systems that meet legal and regulatory compliance requirements
- Be responsible for producing own correspondence, performing and maintaining administrative tasks as required.
- Undertake any other additional tasks as reasonably deemed appropriate by your line manager
- Work collaboratively with the wider T&T Team to integrate approaches and services, to share knowledge and improve outcomes for clients.
Person Specification
- Experience of working with volunteers and/ or volunteering
- Excellent presentation and communication skills, working with both groups and individuals
- Friendly, approachable, and enthusiastic
- Experience of working on projects with required targets and monitoring outcomes
- Knowledge of the issues affecting older people who face isolation and loneliness
- Experience of working with vulnerable older people or a similar client group
- Experience of working in a local community
- Able to manage systems and processes
- Ability to organise and prioritise workload
- Good literacy, numeracy, and IT skills including Microsoft Office
- Able to use a database and maintain accurate records
- An understanding of the importance of client confidentiality
- Ability to work independently on own initiative and to contribute as part of a team
- Working knowledge of using Facebook and Twitter and other types of social media to promote services
January 2018