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Volunteer Role: Patient Representative – Telemedicine in Care Homes Procurement

This volunteering role involves supporting a procurement process for a telemedicine in care homes service. You would be involved in evaluating tenders from organisations bidding to provide the service. Ideally we are seeking members of the public or carers with prior experience around procurement and / or end of life care services, but there is some flexibility.

For full details of the role description, click here. For an overview of the context of the work and what it will involve, click here. To get involved, please contact Sarah Alliston (Senior Programme Manager):  sarah.alliston@nw.london.nhs.uk (cc) / 0203 350 4280 by 3rd March 2017.

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Let Goodgym Help Your Organisation

Nationwide community running movement, Goodgym, an innovative organisation that combines physical fitness with volunteering, is looking for Westminster-based organisations that its volunteers can help on a Wednesday evening. Goodgym volunteers combine getting fit with doing good. As an integral part of their runs the volunteers do physical tasks for community organisations, as well as supporting isolated older people with social visits. They also complete one-off tasks for anyone who can’t do them on their own.

To find out more click here. If your organisation could benefit from some help from Goodgym, please email your details to joel@goodgym.org.

 

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Free Film Training Volunteer Opportunity for 16 – 25 Year Olds

WORLDwrite’s school of Citizen TV WORLDbytes, is providing free access to film training, facilities, tuition and media opportunities to young people under 25 years of age.

Throughout a 6-day training package over the Easter holidays, a team of experienced tutors will take participants through core production elements to produce two programmes for online broadcast. Participants will learn camera work, sound recording, lighting, public speaking, interview technique, promotion and much more. The deadline for applications is 16th March 2017. For further information and to apply click here.

 

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Nominations Open for Westminster Community Awards 2017

Nominate someone for a Community Award to get them the recognition they deserve for their life-changing work. The awards, including the City for All Volunteer of the Year award, recognise people and organisations who have made life better for others by donating their time and skills.

The deadline for nominations is midnight Monday 13 March 2017.

The awards are organised by Westminster City Council in partnership with Groundwork London and One Westminster. For further details click here.

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Trustee Vacancies

There are a number of charities in H&F looking for trustees. Please see here a copy of our latest trustee prospectus with a range of vacancies – click here.

 

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H&F Carers Forum Opportunities

Hammersmith and Fulham Carers Forum is a formal group, supported by Carers Network. This group aims to help local carers:

  • Have their say on local issues for carers
  • Inform the Tri-Borough Carers Partnership Board
  • Help Carers Network plan future events and activities

The Forum is currently recruiting a Chair and Vice Chair.

To see roles and person specifications click here. H&F Forum members who would like to apply need to send a brief description of themselves and why they wish to apply, and send this to Forum facilitator Alix Richards by Friday 7 April 2017: alix.richards@carers-network.org.uk

Please mark email ‘H&F Carers Forum Chair application’ or ‘H&F Carers Forum Vice Chair application’ depending on role you would like to apply for. Alternatively, please post a letter by way of application to Carers Network, Bishop Creighton House, 374-380 Lillie Road, SW6 7PH.

The next H&F Carers Forum will be on, Fri 28 April 2017, 1.30pm-3.30pm at Bishop Creighton House, 374-380 Lillie Rd, SW6 7PH.

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Eye Heroes Campaign

Eye Heroes is a child-led campaign to fight avoidable blindness. Children are trained through volunteer-led interactive workshops in schools to become eye health champions, and inform adults in their communities about eye health and the benefits of regular eye tests. The workshops are run for free by local volunteers, marrying the science of eye health with the pressing need to raise awareness in children aged 8-12, using ways such as games and videos. They are looking for Local Leads in the UK who would recruit volunteers and run workshops in local schools. If interested please contact coordinator@eyeheroes.org.uk.

For further information, please click here

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Erasmus+ Programme

The European Commission Representation in the UK has commissioned Access Europe to deliver advice and support to promote the Erasmus+ programme.

We will help organisations across England to develop applications for European Voluntary Service and Youth Exchanges. These provide opportunities for young people to learn, develop their skills and volunteer in Europe and beyond through:

  • Full-time voluntary service for up to 12 months in another country within or outside the European Union
  • Youth exchanges during which young people meet, live and work together on a chosen topic through a mix of workshops, exercises, debates, role-plays, simulations, outdoor activities etc.

We are launching this project with two application workshops on the 9th and 10th January at Europe House in London. Further events will be organised in February for the 26th April deadline (Call 2) and in June/July for the 4th October deadline (Call 3) across England.

The workshops will provide practical information on how to develop a successful Youth Exchange and EVS project application. We will give all participants a good understanding of:

  • The Erasmus+ programme and its objectives
  • The value of non-formal education for young people
  • Working with transnational partners
  • Project’s logical framework
  • Dissemination and sharing results
  • Monitoring and evaluation

The workshops are aimed at organisations who have a project idea and need practical advice on how to fill the application form. See the agenda and briefing note for more information.

The workshops are free to attend and are open to all organisations active in the field of youth.

If you would like to attend, fill in the form by Thursday 5th January 2017 and return to info@accesseurope.org.uk.

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Volunteering opportunities with the Upper Room

Are you looking for an opportunity to make a difference in the community? Do you have the passion and perhaps a personal story that can make a difference in the lives of ex-offenders? Are you a good communicator with the ability to inspire determination in others, and do you have excellent inter-personal skills? We are looking for suitable volunteers to provide mentoring to the ex-offenders on our UR4Driving Project. For more information on this project, please visit www.theupperroom.org.uk/ur4driving. Any interested candidate may apply, but we are particularly interested in hearing from people who have been personally affected by crime, such as a family member of an ex-offender or people who are themselves ex-offenders.

Purpose of the Role:

To develop supportive and confidential relationship with ex-offenders, helping them to:

  • Receive a holistic support from the project – Supporting their learning and providing case management support to help them address the barriers they face to moving their lives forward.
  • Become self-aware – learn to evaluate themselves, developing awareness of their personal strengths and weaknesses, their skills, the contributions they make that are valued, their interpersonal relationships with others etc.
  • Become self-directing – choosing the directions they want to take. Develop a sense of their own purpose (ownership) – understanding their personal needs, what interests them, what they want, where they are going in life.
  • Experience their own success – the reward of feedback from accomplishments in which they
    have shared. Learning from their mistakes. Gaining deeper insights into themselves and others and the world in general through “doing”.

This is an opportunity to gain key skills in offender management and case work principles. Successful candidates would be provided with Mentor Training. If you are interested and can spare a minimum of 2 straight hours a week in a working day please send a one page statement by email to applications@theupperroom.org.uk, giving your contact details and your suitability for the role.

Having a past criminal conviction will NOT exclude you form this opportunity.

For more information, please go to www.theupperroom.org.uk or contact us on 020 8740 5688 or by email to uradmin@theupperroom.org.uk.

 

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Case Study of using Volunteers to Support Reception at Dawes Road Hub

Dawes Road Hub

The Dawes road Hub managed by Sobus and located in Fulham offers office space, hot desking, meeting and training rooms for hire. It is currently being used by the voluntary and community sector organisations and others.

Reception

The Hub has a team of four part time Receptionist/Administrators working shifts to cover reception as well as providing administrative support for Sobus.

The reception rota was organised so that only one team member would be on reception duty during any shift. This presented a problem in providing cover when the receptionist needed to leave the front desk eg to complete other tasks or take a break. This was initially dealt with by using other members of staff to temporarily cover reception, but this wasn’t ideal and was also subject to staff availability. On the other hand, having two receptionists on shift at reception simultaneously would have been a waste of resources. A solution was needed.

Volunteering Proposal

Volunteering was proposed as possible solution. We decided we should look at how we could reorganise the work to allow us to fully understand what work should be done by staff, and tasks that could be done by a volunteer that would create an interesting volunteer opportunity. After some thought we set up a Receptionist/Administrator Volunteering program. A part time volunteer would volunteer alongside the receptionist on shift and in return they would receive full training, work experience and reasonable reimbursement of expenses for travel and lunch.

Implementing Proposal

A member of the Reception/Administrator team, was asked to create a series of Volunteer handbooks across three levels of learning, which would provide information and instructions on all tasks included in the role. The handbooks were designed to assist training and give feedback on training progression both to volunteers and to the team. It was also necessary to amend existing documents used for paid staff to make them appropriate for voluntary staff including Voluntary role advertisement, role description, person specification and other policy documents. Once everything was completed and approved, we were to advertise the role through Hammersmith & Fulham Volunteer Centre who put details on ‘Do-it’ through their website. We were fortunate however in receiving direct offers of voluntary help from two interested individuals before the advert was put out. A meeting took place with the potential volunteers to discuss the role and their own expectations and skillset.

Outcome

Both individuals were taken on as volunteers. Each volunteer completed the agreed three month voluntary period. The experience has helped one volunteer to develop their own business, the other has moved from a retail job to an office job. The reception team and Sobus found it really useful to have extra help ensuring a high level of service to people using the Hub, additional tasks being completed and having a pool of people to recruit from when required. We are now recruiting volunteer receptionists on an ongoing basis and looking to develop a similar model in other areas of Sobus’s work. We have had no shortage of interest or applicants.

As a result of this experience we would highly recommend taking on volunteers to other organisations, where a similar program could be tailored to suit any particular organisational need.

If you want to learn more, contact Sobus at  support@sobus.org.uk or get help with volunteers in your organisation please contact Catherine Perez-Phillips – Volunteer Services Manager at H&F Volunteer Centre on 020 8741 9876 or Catherine@hfvc.org.uk

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