Dear Applicant,
Thank you for your interest in becoming a volunteer at Coram Voice.
Please find below your application pack. The pack will include information on the following:
- Background information
- What we do
- Core purpose, vision and values
- Volunteer role description
- Person specification
- Personal Information / Equal opportunities form
- Application form
Please complete the application form and equal opportunities form fully.
Please note that all volunteer posts are subject to a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check.
If you have any queries about the role or anything in this pack, please do not hesitate to contact Charlotte Hancock, Helpline Manager, on 0207 239 7527 or
I look forward to hearing from you.
Charlotte Hancock
Helpline Manager
Background information
As of 1st October 2013, Voice became a member of the Coram group of charities and became known as Coram Voice. Coram Voice and the Coram group will be sharing services and together championing the cause of children dependent on the state for support.
Coram Voice (formerly Voice for the Child in Care) is a national independent children’s charity which was established in 1975 and has grown to become one of the leading agencies for children and young people in the UK. Around 50 employed staff, 30 freelance workers and 60 volunteers deliver services to children and agencies through our London headquarters and regional offices. Together they provide Coram Voice with a high degree of specialist expertise in the fields of advocacy, children’s rights, mental health, complaints, secure accommodation and experience of working with children in care, in need and those who have recently left care.
What we do
We provide:
- A National Helpline to provide access for children and young people to advocacy and advice, with access to legal advice and links with other national helplines such as ChildLine.
- Advocacy services direct to children and young people in care, in need, and to care leavers and children and young people with severe and complex mental health problems. Advocates around the country support children and young people to get their voice heard in decisions about their lives. This may be through the telephone helpline or through an advocate working directly with a child, for instance, to support them at a review meeting or to help them make a complaint about their care. Coram Voice provides visiting advocacy services to most of the secure units nationally, to Secure Training Centres, psychiatric hospitals, residential special schools and children’s homes.
- Independent Mental Health Advocacy (IMHA) to advocate for young people as qualifying patients under the Mental Health Act, in order to fully support them to get their views heard in matters relating to their mental health.
- Independent services: Coram Voice is a major national provider of independent person services for complaints by children, and for reviewing whether children should be locked up in secure units on welfare grounds.
- Independent visitors services providing volunteer befrienders to children and young people in care.
- Participation services to ensure children and young people have a voice in the development and delivery of services and campaigns, and through the process, provide the opportunity to develop relevant skills which will be of benefit to them in their future lives.
- Policy and campaigning tocreate a better system for all children and young people looked after by the state, for their care to be more child-centred and to give young people a greater say in decisions about their lives.
- Training, development and information for young people, advocates and child care workers, offering courses in advocacy, children’s rights and child-centred practice across a range of areas including the new National Advocacy Qualification.
Core purpose, vision and values
Our core purpose
Coram Voice exists to enable and equip children and young people* to hold to account the system responsible for their care, to challenge and support it to do its job properly and to uphold the rights of children and young people to actively participate in shaping their own lives.
*We work with, and for a range of, children and young people who are potentially vulnerable to harm or exclusion from society, and who have a particular reliance on the state or its agencies for their rights and wellbeing, including children and young people who are looked after by the state, in need or who have severe and complex mental health problems and care leavers. This is not an exclusive list.
Our vision
Coram Voice strives for a society which recognises and willingly accepts its responsibilities to children and young people, where the inequalities and discrimination they currently face have been eradicated. Where those children and young people are fully engaged in all decisions that are made about their lives. Where the views, needs and feelings that they express are at the core of those decisions.
Our values
- We are child driven; always asking what children would want us to do. By engaging them at all levels of our work, their views and experiences are central to shaping all our plans. We are tenacious and passionate champions of children’s rights and we will not be distracted in our determination to do the right thing for children and young people.
- Second only to our dedication to children is our dedication to each other. Our work is defined and inspired by meaningful, supportive, mutually empowering relationships with and between children and young people, colleagues and partners. These relationships are powerful because they are authentic and human, where every contribution is equally valued and respected.
- We create a sharing and supportive working environment where work can and should be fun. We recognise that happy people perform at their best, and that people performing at their best are happier in their work. We celebrate our successes together and are open about our concerns and mistakes, supporting each other to grow and learn from them. We work flexibly, supporting each other in times of high workload or when life gets difficult.
- We accept personal responsibility for our work and we are accountable for delivering results against those responsibilities. Managers empower their people to take ownership of and make decisions on their areas of responsibility, ensuring that workload is manageable, that people are treated fairly, that they are supported and challenged to succeed. Everyone at Coram Voice is committed to modelling and championing these values, and managers have a particular responsibility for bringing them to life.
Children’s Advocacy Helpline Volunteer
Volunteer Role Description
RESPONSIBLE TO: Helpline Manager
HOURS: Flexible (minimum 1 day a week for 1 year)
All Coram Voice staff are expected to work in line with our brand, values and management principles, in particular by:
- Building and maintaining meaningful, supportive, mutually empowering relationships with and between colleagues, partners, and children and young people.
- Creating and supporting a friendly and trusting working environment, working flexibly and supporting each other in times of high workload or when life gets difficult.
- Accepting personal responsibility for our work and being accountable for delivering results against those responsibilities.
- Recognising that we all have a role to play in all aspects of Coram Voice’s success, in particular in supporting fundraising, storytelling, and involving children and young people in shaping the future of Coram Voice.
Main focus for the post:
To support the work of the Coram Voice advocacy helpline for children and young people.
Responsibilities:
1Helpline
1.1To take referrals (phone, email, text) from children and adults on their behalf and enter information on our case management database
1.2To participate in the empowerment of young people through advocacy and to help them to solve problems and make representations.
1.3To act as the helpline advocate, prioritising actions, responding to any helpline queries, providing direct advocacy support, referring callers to the appropriate service and offering advice to young people or professionals.
1.4Ensure that calls (or other contacts) are answered appropriately and that suitable advice and assistance is offered.
1.5Ensure that young people’s views are heard and to assist them in seeking satisfactory resolutions.
1.6Ensure that actions on the case record and helpline case listing are appropriate and completed and, where this is not possible, identifying priorities for action.
1.7Ensure that all work undertaken in the helpline is in line with Coram Voice policies and procedures.
1.8To partake in Helpline team discussions alerting Helpline Supervisors to safeguarding or other priority calls
General responsibilities
1.1Ensuring that confidentiality is maintained in the handling of sensitive data.
1.2 To ensure that support to children, young people and adults is within an anti- discriminatory framework
Development opportunities
This role will give you the opportunity to build on and develop a range of skills and knowledge including:
Skills
- Communicating with children in crisis situations who contact the helpline
- Dealing with professionals within Social Services including social workers and foster carers
- Signposting young people, adults and professionals to relevant agencies and organisations
- Direct work with children and young people in the care system and living away from home
- Working with case management databases (Coram Voice use Frameworki a database also used within Children’s Social Care).
Knowledge
- The care system and the law surrounding this including the Children Act 1989, 2004 Safeguarding, Data Protection (1998)
- Advocacy practice and procedures for children and young people in contact with Children’s Social Care including the National Advocacy Standards and how they are implemented
- Children and young people’s rights and entitlements within the care system
- Specialist areas in reference to children and young peoples rights and entitlements including; homeless young people, refugee and asylum seeking young people, care leavers, young people experiencing mental health difficulties and children and young people with disabilities.
Access to free training
Coram Voice provides an award-winning range of learning and development opportunities in advocacy, children’s rights and child-centered practice, for our workers and the wider children’s workforce; including seminars and training days, qualifications and blended learning. Volunteers are also eligible to attend such training courses training opportunities including:
- ‘Being a Voice’ advocacy training - a highly interactive coursethat equips you to advocate with children and young people in need and in publiccare system and to promote their rights, participation and empowerment.You will learn the relevant legislation andguidance to champion young people’s rights and enable them to make informed choicesabout their situation.
- Safeguarding - Describe the context and current practice issues of safeguarding and child protection, the legal framework – Working Together (2013), Data Protection, Role of the Local Safeguarding Children’s Boards, advocate with young people on safeguarding issues from a child-centred perspective.
- Equality and diversity training - Summarise key legislation, rights and guidance relating to diversity and equality; demonstrate an awareness of your own and others beliefs, attitudes and behaviours based on our experiences. Identify ways to promote equality and diversity within your practice
- IT Frameworki database training on how to create individual records and use the data base to record case work.
Expenses
All Coram Voice volunteers can expect to be paid out of pocket expenses. Coram Voice will reimburse volunteers’ expenses upon the production of receipts as follows:
•Travel to and from your home to Coram Voice up to a maximum of £10 per day (to be agreed with your line manager at time of appointment)
•Lunch expenses up to a maximum of £5 per day
Volunteers will be given clear information from their line manager about what expenses can be claimed and how to make a claim.
Children’s Advocacy Helpline Volunteer
Person Specification
* Method of Assessment
A = Application Form D = Documentary Evidence (e.g. Certificates/Portfolio) I = Interview (panel and/or young people) E = Exercise
Please note that this column is indicative of where each criterion is likely to be tested, however all elements of the person specification may be tested at any stage of the recruitment process. Candidates must use each element of the person specification as a heading in the supporting statement of their application, explaining clearly and with examples how they meet the criteria.
Factor / Criteria / Essential/Desirable / Method of Assessment*A / D / I / E
Skills & Knowledge /
- Good standard of general education and/or relevant or transferable experience such as working (including voluntary) with children and young people, advice giving, support work, and answering and making telephone calls on behalf of others.
- Awareness of the issues that may face children and young people (ideally of those involved in the care system)
- Excellent inter-personal skills and ability to communicate well with people who may be in crisis or distressed good communication written and oral
- Computer literate
- Database skills
Personal Attributes /
- Commitment to children and young people
- Ability to listen and empathise with others
- Open minded and committed to equality and diversity
- Commitment to learning and development
- Good time keeping