Are you passionate about mental health and supporting young people, interested in counselling, youth work, social work, or mental health services?
As one of our passionate and highly skilled team, you have the opportunity to make a genuine difference to educational and mental health inequality!
We are seeking passionate one to one (1:1) long term mentors for our Illuminate programme for children and young people who really need that extra support - someone they can open up to, trust and a role model to help fulfil their potential. It might be that they have issues with anxiety or mental health, are a young carer or have experienced trauma.
These are weekly 1:1 sessions out in the community or at the young person's home and can be activity based or can be more therapeutic depending on the needs of the child. We match our practitioners and/ or volunteers carefully with the young people on personality and interests and needs.
A Bit About Us
Leading Lights is a not-for-profit that works with children, young people and families impacted by social, emotional and mental health. It offers imaginative expert support for children and young people at both primary and secondary school age, and their families who are disadvantaged because of social, emotional, and mental health (SEMH) difficulties. We run a range of specialist services and projects to support children and young people who might be feeling anxious, stressed or suffering in silence. These range from small group therapeutic projects to mentoring to advice and advocacy. Our approach is holistic and is about sensitive joined up working where we really listen to what the young people need.
We work with children and young people at both primary and secondary school age who are disadvantaged because of social, emotional, and mental health (SEMH) difficulties. They often have a diagnosed mental health condition or are waiting for a diagnosis, and it is often correlated with a history of trauma or psychological distress, or another disability, learning need, or physical illness. Many of the children we work with are also affected by issues such as domestic violence, abuse, identity issues, bullying and many are young carers.
Whilst each child is affected differently, common issues that we see are: Problems accessing school either through non-attendance, or difficulty focusing and thriving at school, difficulties making friends leading to significant social isolation, issues with confidence and self-esteem which can lead to difficulties leaving the house or even their rooms for days at a time, panic attacks, suicidal attempts or ideation, self-harm, and difficulties accessing support and help from statutory services.
We want to make three key differences:
- Improved mental health.
- Reduced social isolation
- Increased ability to thrive at school
Your volunteer responsibilities will include:
- A weekly commitment of up to 2 hours plus travel
- A willingness to travel to see young people in person and also to spend time with them at their home
- A willingness to participate in regular check ins with the Volunteer Coordinator
- A small amount of follow up admin e.g. writing up session notes after sessions
- A commitment to safeguarding best practice and follow up support which might include escalating safeguarding concerns to the safeguarding officer
- A commitment to attend any relevant training and reflective practice sessions for role development e.g. all volunteers must attend internal safeguarding training at least once a year, alongside informal learning opportunities through other relevant training opportunities and supervision.
- Proactive follow up with young people which may on occasion include face to face meetings and other follow up with external/statutory agencies.
Ideally you will have:
- A genuine passion for helping children and young people.
- Emotional resilience.
- Be imaginative and proactive about problem solving.
- Good communication skills.
- Patient, empathetic, and calm manner.
- A willingness to give and receive feedback.
- Knowledge of confidentiality and safeguarding process.
- A belief in and commitment to our values.
- Ability to use initiative and be able to work without supervision.
- Ability to commit to at least 1 year with us.
- We want our volunteers to get the most out of their experience with us both personally and professionally. Let us know if there are particular areas you'd like to develop/train/learn in and we’ll see if we can support you.
What you will gain:
- Opportunity to turn your passion for supporting young people into real positive change for a small not for profit, where every person is capable of having profound impact.
- Chance to be part of a lovely warm and supportive team.
- Professional and training development opportunities.
How to apply:
Please email team@leadinglightseducationandwellbeing.org.uk with a short paragraph on why you are interested in the role, as well as any relevant/related experience and we'll go from there! Thank-you so much in advance for being amazing and wanting to do this - it's so kind and so much appreciated that you want to give your time and help others!
Our next volunteer assessment & induction session is taking place on Tuesday 10th January (pm) with follow-up internal safeguarding training on Tuesday 24th January (pm) at our base in Stokes Croft. This is a great point in the year to get involved as we'll be running some valuable training across February on a number of key topics for supporting and working with vulnerable children/young people.
We are committed to equality of opportunity and welcome applicants from under-represented groups and diverse backgrounds and those who do not always get their voices heard.