About The Role
Mentoring can transform lives, both for the Mentor and the Mentee.
We are currently looking for individuals interested in volunteering as a Community Mentor in South Gloucestershire, who will focus on helping young people develop confidence, self-esteem and improved interpersonal skills and wellbeing. Note: Our Can Do Bristol advert has a focus on recruiting around the edges of Bristol which meet S Glos so we are interested in hearing from people from areas such as: Kingswood, Warmley and Patchway.
You’ll do this by bringing a positive attitude, outside perspective, and your own personal experiences. Sharing your community, hobbies and interests, and supporting a young person to develop their own. You will also act as a positive, reliable role model and responsible adult in their life.
Mentors are an empathetic motivating figure in a young person's life. Mentoring offers young people the chance to be inspired, supported and encouraged to seek out opportunities that they might not have previously considered.
The young people we work with have all either been at risk of homelessness or have been homeless. They may be care leavers, have spent time in custody or be deemed at risk of custody. They may have experienced poor mental and/or physical health, addiction, been the victim of a crime or exploitation. They may be a parent. They may be an unaccompanied asylum-seeking child. This may be the first time they’ve lived in South Gloucestershire or they may have grown up and have family here.
For the past year and a half we have been running a successful, mentoring project in South Gloucestershire, and we have plans continue this work for a further year – recruiting up to 12 further volunteer mentors to do so.
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic we are offering young people mentoring sessions over phone and video call, with some face to face distanced and ‘Covid secure’ meetings in the community if in line with government guidelines at the time, and wanted by both mentor and mentee. In recent months the majority of mentoring has moved back to face to face.
The length of intervention is likely to vary from individual to individual, however we ask that Community Mentors can commit to at least 2hrs a fortnight, for 9months alongside semi-regular supervisions (roughly every 3 months) and reflective practice sessions (once every 6 weeks) as a minimum. There will be some ‘admin time’ required for this role in addition.
If you have any questions about the roles or the project as a whole, please contact: Sarah Hickie, Community Mentoring Project Coordinator (South Glos) at sarah.hickie@1625ip.co.uk
About You
You don’t have to have had any formal experience of mentoring to be considered for this role, as full training is provided. What you do need however are good listening skills, patience and enthusiasm to talk about your own experiences and share knowledge as appropriate. As well as regular time to give, and an ability to commit fully to this role.
You’ll also have empathy and understanding of the needs of young people who have experienced a disrupted education, and homelessness, and the barriers they face.
You’ll be flexible, assertive and resilient, able to develop effective working relationships with young people and engage with a variety of personalities.
We welcome applications from anyone, but due to the backgrounds and interests of our young people, and some imbalances currently in the project makeup, we are particularly interested in hearing from potential applications who:
- Identify as female and offended and/or were considered (or now consider themselves in hindsight) at risk of offending in their youth. Please note that appointment is subject to an enhanced DBS check and any offending history will be considered on a case by case basis.
- Identify as female, and have professional experience of working with young women involved in risky behaviours
- Live in South Gloucestershire and engage with the local community here
- Spent time in care
- Describe their ethnicity as Black, and/or consider themselves as part of a minority ethnicity group. In particular we are looking for mentors who are Kurdish (Iraqi, Afghani or Iranian), Sudanese or Eritrean
- Have lived experience of homelessness, and/or unstable accommodation including sofa surfing
Please note despite us feeling it is helpful for mentors to have lived experience that relates to their mentee’s experiences this is not essential for a successful match. In addition, we are not expecting any volunteer to be an expert in the unique needs of the groups noted above, and we provide support via dedicated roles within our organisation to these groups – with mentoring an additional offer to some young people, alongside this. We will discuss with you and assess your preparedness to work with a mentee from the group above at the application, interview and matching stage.
If you are interesting in applying please either follow the link to our website or contact Ellie Ford for an application form and other information on eleanor.ford@1625ip.co.uk
Once complete please send applications to: Ellie Ford at eleanor.ford@1625ip.co.uk
Closing Date, Interviews and Training
In order for your application to be considered in time for our next round of Volunteer Mentor Training please apply before end of day Wednesday 1st December 2021.
Interviews may be conducted as suitable applications are received. Interviews will take place over Google Meet video calling, likely being completed by end of November/Mid December.
Please note that we will be running compulsory training for this role across 3 evenings, likely over Zoom, likely throughout January. Dates and times TBC.