Community Facilitator Volunteer Roles in Edinburgh

Can you spare a few hours a week to support members of the Colostomy UK Facebook Support group?

We are looking for volunteers who can help respond to queries from group members on our closed Facebook group during the evenings (Mon – Fri, 5 - 9pm) and at weekends (Sat & Sun, 9am - 9pm).

Members of the support group are generally very positive, encouraging and kind to each other. Generally, members want to help each other, and the group has a real sense of community. The group is for anyone with a stoma or who has genuine interest in supporting someone with a stoma. 

What will you do?

You will be logged in and respond to posts as Colostomy UK. We ask that you look at the group approximately once an hour during your shift and respond to posts as and when required. This may involve giving advice (never medical advice) or signposting back to our website.

You don’t need to respond immediately if you are unsure, however we do ask that you have a basic understanding of the group guidelines and alert the office team to any concerns. We ask that you delete any posts without delay that are obviously against the rules (we’ll tell you what those are during the training).

We have a weekly rota, and you can sign up for the time slots that work best for you. Shifts can be scheduled for the same day and time each week, or vary, as suits you.

How will we support you?

You will complete two hours of comprehensive training before getting started, so you are fully aware of what you need to do and when.

We’ll buddy you with an established volunteer who can support you in the initial few weeks.

You will be part of our WhatsApp group which includes other volunteers and the office team, so if you are ever unsure on how to help someone, others can help. Members of the WhatsApp group are happy to be contacted out of hours so very available if needed. 

What qualities and skills will you need?

• Great if you are an ostomate but you don’t have to be.
• Good writing skills and able to respond to messages in a timely manner via your device or PC.
• Correspond in a supportive and person specific manner with members of the group.
• Empathy with and enthusiasm for helping people.
• Good understanding of our charity and the support we offer.

Can you help out?We’d love to hear from you!

You will need to complete the relevant training for the role. You will be asked to complete an application form, DBS check, video interview and provide 2 satisfactory references.

Educators and facilitators wanted to help East London Waterworks Park deliver its environmental learning goals.

East London Waterworks Park is a volunteer-led charity that has won a 2024 New London Architecture award and raised £2m towards buying land from the Department for Education to transform the 14-acre Thames Water Depot on Lea Bridge Road on the border of Waltham Forest and Hackney, into a new biodiverse park with natural swimming ponds, forest schools and community spaces. 

We are looking for educator and facilitator volunteers to participate in our community-led working group, who are collaborating with schools, universities and youth groups that help the design of the park. 

Examples of projects are: 

• collaborating on nature walk activities for schools
• supporting university students interviewing teachers
• creating lesson plans to co-design the park. 

Schools, universities and youth groups we've collaborated with include:

• Buxton School, Leytonstone
• Kingsmead School, Enfield 
• UCL 
• Royal College of Art
• University of Westminster 
• Project Zero
• Voyage Youth 
• Loyola University Chicago 
• Vanderbilt University Nashville. 

We're looking for people to lead on these projects and facilitate the direction of the learning working group.

The Learning Circle currently meets monthly on a Wednesday evening at 8pm for an hour on Google Meet and spends voluntary time outside of the meeting completing agreed tasks remotely.

You should be an experienced teacher, educational consultant, forest school leader, training and development specialist, learning designer, facilitator or any other kind of role creating learning projects, programmes and experiences. Our roles are quite flexible. We hope that people bring radical imagination, peace with nature, and courageous inclusiveness to the role. 

Your support will help young people and learners improve their environmental knowledge of design and research as well as contributing to our community-owned park. This will in turn provide a sense of stewardship over the land once the park is created and student's ideas have been built into the park. 

Creating learning projects with educational institutions will also help our charity with the strategy to buy the land through showing the value of our environmental education programme before we create the park.