Volunteer and Befriending Coordinator

We are Hestia. We make a difference. 

At Hestia, we live by our values and are committed to a more equitable, diverse, and inclusive organisation that provides a variety of services such as Domestic Abuse, Modern Slavery, Mental Health & Complex Needs and Criminal Justice. We are committed to empower people to rebuild their lives and regain independence. 

The service you will work in….

The Grove Outreach service enables Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea residents to avoid, and in particular to reduce the need for, prolonged hospital admissions and long-term dependency on mental health services. We promote recovery and prevent social exclusion among service users with mental health support needs. This service delivers community based, person-centred and holistic support to service users who are aged over 18, who have a severe and/or enduring mental health needs and living in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.

The overall aim of support provision is preventing hospital admissions and facilitating earlier discharge, promoting recovery, social inclusion and helping service users to maximise their independence and wellbeing, access to employment, training, and other mainstream activities.

The service operates Monday to Wednesday 09.00 – 17.30 and Thursday to Friday 09.00 – 17.00, excluding bank holidays.

A day in this role looks like….

As a Volunteering & Befriending Coordinatorat Hestia, you will play a crucial role in our Mental Health and Complex Needs service. Your contributions will directly influence the lives of our service users, guiding them towards a path of empowerment and independence.

A day will never look the same and some of the things you can expect to do/be responsible for are:

• Work closely with the Service Manager to identify the need for and most effective use of community and peer volunteers within a recovery orientated approach.
• To organise one monthly outing event for carers.
• Recruit, place, train, and support volunteers as Befrienders ensuring that all volunteers understand the roles they are being asked to do and have a job description.
• Promotes a service user-oriented organisation by ensuring that all activity is aligned to identify service user needs.
• Promote awareness of the benefits of volunteering.
• Line manage the volunteers by providing effective supervision, training, support, and development.
• Work closely with colleagues to ensure that all user risk information is received and reviewed prior to allocating a Befriender.
• Ensure that community volunteers are recruited according to Hestia's safer recruitment practices which requires the provision of 2 references and the completion of an enhanced CRB disclosure.
• Conduct a risk assessment and risk management plan on all volunteers before they are matched with a role.Ensure that all applications from volunteers for payment and out of pocket expenses are checked and signed off, in accordance with internal procedures, before payment is made.
• Make applications to charitable trusts or businesses for additional funding as and when required.

Why Hestia?

Joining Hestia means more than just a job; it's an opportunity to be part of something bigger. We offer a supportive, inclusive and resolution driven work environment where your contributions are recognised and valued. As a member of our team, you will have the chance to grow both personally and professionally while making a lasting impact on the lives of those we serve.

We are looking for candidates who bring a combination of passion, expertise, and dedication to the table. To excel in this role, you should possess:

• Experience of organising structured outing events for service users.
• Experience of promoting recovery and prevent social exclusion among service users with mental health support needs.
• Skills and ability to improve each service user's quality of life including promoting, supporting, and maintaining independent living.
• Experience of providing relevant support in accordance to the service user's needs through the use of the risk and support planning process.
• Supporting service users to develop skills required for independent living and address their broader needs by enabling access to other support and advice services,
• Encourage and promote a multi-agency approach of working to ensure the needs of the service users are met to a high quality which will include working in partnership with a range of care and support agencies within a support planning framework.
• Work in partnership with other agencies to provide support for people with mental health needs.
• Ability to recruit, work with and support a diverse team of volunteers.
• Ability to design and deliver appropriate training programmes for volunteers.
• Ability to deal with complex administrative tasks, setting up systems, co-ordinating the use of volunteers and maintaining records and performance information using a database systems.
• Excellent self-management skills including organising and managing own time and ability to manage work priorities.

Our commitment to Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion

Our services users come from all walks of life and so do we. We hire great people from a wide variety of backgrounds because it makes us stronger. We are committed to creating and maintaining a diverse and inclusive workforce and value the skills, abilities, talent and experiences, different people and communities bring to our organisation.

We are a disability confident employer…

Hestia is a disability confident employer, committed to the employment and career development of individual with disabilities. As part of this commitment, we operate a guaranteed interview scheme for all applicants with disabilities who meet the minimum criteria for the role they have applied for. We will also accommodate reasonable adjustment during the selection and interview process and throughout your employment with us.