Volunteer and community involvement is a core part of what we do here at Sands. From Sands United Teams, Support Groups, knitters, Parent Speakers and event volunteer, volunteers are at the heart of Sands delivering peer support, and building a local community for bereaved parents.
Sands Groups are volunteer led, and community driven.
Sands has a vision to grow community-based peer support, community activity and volunteer involvement across the organisation. This requires an investment in enabling, innovation in peer support and volunteer involvement and partnership working.At the heart of this is our Befrienders.
Befrienders are in every Group across the UK and enable online support groups too.
This post is all about developing, delivering and managing our fantastic volunteer befriender programme across Sands. Ensuring that Sands befrienders are enabled to provide warm, supportive, evidence-based and values-driven peer support to bereaved families across the UK.
This maternity cover post will have two key focus areas
- Maintaining key components of the befriender programme, including regular communications and meeting with Befrienders, driving recruitment opportunities, supporting innovation in Befriending and troubleshooting in partnership with volunteers.
- Deliver a fixed timeline project focused on developing the Befriender programme.
Responsibilities
Best practice in peer support and befriender programmes
- Manage the direction and growth of the Befriender programme
- Work with the Development Leads and Community Development Officers to create plans for regions to support existing Befrienders and grow the peer support offer across the UK
· To engage, inspire and support existing Sands befrienders, providing a positive volunteer experience from recruitment to saying goodbye
- Be the point of contact for Befriender safeguarding issues. Be proactive in addressing and be an escalation point for challenges, risks and safeguarding issues.
- Practice and support excellent standards in all aspects of inclusion and diversity, particularly in reaching marginalised groups in recruitment and enabling volunteers to provide inclusive support spaces.
- Lead on development of processes, guidance and resources, ensuring good governance and risk management of the Befriender Programme
- Work with the Volunteering Coordinator to ensure delivery of key processes, process development and improvement to enhance the volunteer experience.
· To identify learning and development opportunities for befrienders and create a culture of continued learning for all Befrienders
Develop and innovate
- Be an opportunity spotter, picking up innovation opportunities to grow and develop the Befriender programme, alongside relevant Sands’ staff teams.
- Manage short- and long-term projects and where appropriate join cross organisational working groups to represent the Community and Volunteering Team. Including projects that may have budgets.
- Advocate the voices and needs of Befrienders, bringing in knowledge and feedback to enable good decision making and volunteer participation in new ways of working
- Through supporting approaches to recruitment and partnerships, ensure that individuals with a wide range of bereavement experiences are at the heart of Sands’ volunteering
· Build a data driven understanding of gaps in service and representation, and make promotion and recruitment decisions to support growth for under-represented towns/regions/groups
· Support continuous improvement and accurate delivery of processes in the welcome journey for new befrienders, including in recruitment, on-boarding and off-boarding processes in partnership with the Volunteer Coordinator
· Use the CRM to record accurate information and help make data informed decisions
Internal and external partnerships
- Work with the Bereavement Support Services Team (BSS) to ensure collaboration across the Befriender programme and national BSS support groups and ensure the Befriender programme continues to be rooted in trauma-informed practice.
- Work with the Training Team to ensure that training and learning experiences for Befrienders are up to date, relevant and accessible.
- Work with the Philanthropy and Partnerships team and the Head of Community and Volunteering to maximise compelling cases for support, storytelling and funding opportunities at a national and local level.
· Work with the Engagement Team to ensure Sands befriending is represented in an engaging and positive way across Sands social media and the media
Registered Charity
51 - 100
We are here to support everyone touched by pregnancy loss or the death of a baby. Always.
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.
Thank you!
This is a new role leading on engagement in the Transport for the South East area, playing a vital role in building and strengthening local networks, supporting grassroots campaigning, and ensuring that disabled people’s experiences inform both regional and national influencing work. You’ll organise campaigns and forums, represent Transport for All at events, and work with service providers and councils to make transport fairer and more equitable.
We are a small, committed and disabled-led team working to make sure that disabled people’s voices are heard in politics, the media and beyond. This role is central to ensuring lived experience drives systemic change in London’s transport system.
You must be disabled and live in the South East of England to apply for this role
This role has a genuine occupational requirement of lived experience of disability. This explicitly includes those of us who are Deaf, neurodivergent, chronically ill, have a mental health condition, have age-related impairments, and people with both visible and non-visible impairments. If you do not meet the genuine occupational requirement, your application will not be shortlisted for an interview.
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.
Thank you!
Lloyds Bank Foundation
Strategic Lead for Systems Change
Starting Salary: £59,098 (if London-based); £55,587 (if not London-based)
Contract: Full-time, 2-year Fixed-Term Contract (we are open to conversations about flexibility - so please ask)
Location: Remote role - can be based anywhere in England or Wales with an expectation of regular travel across England and Wales including overnight trips to London
About Lloyds Bank Foundation
Lloyds Bank Foundation for England and Wales is an independent charitable foundation, backed by Lloyds Banking Group and the people within it. We want everyone to be in a good place - personally, in a home that’s a good place to live, and in a community that’s a good place to belong.
We play our role by connecting and catalysing community-led change, providing the money, time, tools and connections that build organisations’ capacity and capability, to make people’s lives better and their communities stronger.
We back people and communities across England and Wales, to make that happen, because when you back brilliant people, brilliant things happen. Our communities are full of ambitious, energetic and determined people stepping up to make their neighbours’ lives better and their communities grow stronger. Day in, day out.
About the Role
This is a key role strengthening the Foundation’s ability to work confidently within complex local systems and to support systems change across England and Wales. You will play a central role in shaping and developing our systems change approach, ensuring it is practical, consistent and embedded across our work in places.
You will work closely with regional teams and partners to support effective collaboration within local systems, ensuring our work is well-informed by context and lived experience. A key part of the role is enabling others - building confidence, capability and practical understanding of systems change across the organisation.
This is not a delivery-heavy role. Instead, you will focus on enabling, coaching and strengthening practice so that colleagues and partners are better equipped to work within complexity and drive meaningful change.
About You
We are looking for someone with strong, practical experience of working within systems change, place-based work or complex multi-stakeholder environments. You will bring confidence in working across boundaries and supporting others to navigate complexity.
You will be skilled in coaching, facilitation and capability building, with the ability to translate systems thinking into practical approaches others can use. Strong relationship-building skills and the ability to work credibly with a wide range of stakeholders will be essential.
A commitment to equity, diversity, inclusion and belonging is essential.
How to Apply
Please click ‘Apply’ to be redirected to our website, where you can download the Candidate Information Pack and find details of how to apply.
For an informal conversation about the role and application process, please contact our recruitment partner, Atkinson HR via the information available in the Candidate pack.
Our Commitment to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
We hold Disability Confident Employer status (Level 2) and are working towards full status by 2027. If you are a disabled applicant and your CV and application answers clearly demonstrate that you meet the essential criteria, we will invite you to interview.
We are committed to building a diverse team that reflects the communities we work with. We actively welcome applications from people under-represented in the charity sector, including Black, Asian and minoritised ethnic communities, disabled people, and those with lived experience of the issues our funded charities address.
Key Dates
Closing Date: Midday, Monday 8th June 2026
Optional Q&A Session: Wednesday 6th May 2026 at 09:00-10:00
First Interview: Wednesday 17th June 2026
Second Interview: Friday 26th June 2026
Registered Charity
21 - 50
We support small, local and specialist charities across England and Wales.
