Community Connector Support Volunteer

Community Connector Support Volunteer
Location: Brixton

About the role
It starts with Hello. From new mums to empty nesters, it's often surprising who is affected by loneliness.
That's why we're teaming up with The Co-operative. Together we want to reach out and reconnect thousands of lonely people with their communities, and tackle a problem that is shortening lives and eroding wellbeing.

The aim of the Community Connecter is to support people affected by social isolation and loneliness and to help them gain confidence and to reconnect to their community in partnership with existing and new partner organisations. We will place the person at the centre of what we do and help them by offering positive encouragement, practical help and emotional support, for up to three months, depending on their needs.

About the Team
In the UK, our health and social care work offers valuable time-limited support for individuals vulnerable to crisis. For people experiencing social isolation and loneliness our service enables people to access services and support to lessen the associated impact and reconnect into their communities.

Typical tasks include

• Being aware of and keeping up to date with local community services appropriate to our service users with support from the Community Connector Manager.
• Supporting lonely & socially isolated service users to build confidence, self-esteem and to regain independence
• Listening to people's needs, aspirations and concerns and co-creating a step plan to ensure the person meets their aims. This may involve providing advice on regular, healthy nutrition and hydration and managing hygiene.
• Supporting people to attend local community services suitable to their needs, helping them identify other activities in the area and going with them as necessary. This enables access to various health/medical appointments, social activities, shopping, transport and other community services. This may involve travelling with service users or transporting them using your own vehicle where appropriate.

About the person
We keep the service user at the heart of what we do, working to understand their needs and the difference we make. You need to have good interpersonal skills, diplomacy; communication and teamwork skills. Full training can be given for any necessary technical requirements.

This role requires a DBS/PVG/AccessNI check to the appropriate level.

Please click here to view the full role profile and person specification.

What We Offer:

• The chance to work with a variety of different people from different walks of life and make a real difference to their lives.
• A great opportunity to develop your existing skills and to gain new ones.
• The company of a warm and friendly team of like-minded people.
• Reimbursement of reasonable out-of-pocket expenses when on duty.
• Being a volunteer for the British Red Cross means that you can proudly say you are part of the world's largest humanitarian organisation.

Young People and This Role
We value the energy and enthusiasm that young people bring to this role. Anyone can volunteer with the Red Cross from the age of 15. An individual risk assessment, parental consent and safeguarding considerations will be required from those aged 15 - 17. Volunteers will need to be at least 18 to visit service users on their own but those aged 15 - 17 can be involved in a variety of activities such as promoting the service, supporting service volunteers, providing administrative support and undertaking training, if appropriate.

About the organisation
The British Red Cross helps millions of people in the UK and around the world to prepare for, respond to and recover from emergencies, disasters and conflicts.

We are part of the global Red Cross and Red Crescent humanitarian network and we refuse to ignore people in crisis.

Refusing to ignore people in crisis