Volunteer befriender jobs

Project Worker 2 - Volunteer Co-ordinator (Maternity cover)

Are you looking for a new challenge? 

Would you like to join our exciting and innovative Barnardo's Swansea Bloom Service working with young people who are care experienced as they make the transition to independence?

About the Bloom Service

Barnardo's Swansea Bloom Service works directly with care experienced young people to help improve their emotional wellbeing, resilience and self confidence. Our aim is to create a positive space for them to explore their identity, passions, and potential. The support on offer includes  the opportunity to take part in amazing activities, life coaching, befriending and peer mentoring.

This is an exciting opportunity for a highly motivated individual to join Barnardo's as a Volunteer, Befriending and Peer Mentoring Co-ordinator (Project Worker 2).

The contract is for 25 hours a week to cover the maternity leave of the substantive post holder until 31st March 2025.

Bloom is a growing service offering a unique opportunity for the right person to develop, co-ordinate and deliver our Volunteer, Befriending and Peer Mentoring work using established and innovative approaches. The Co-ordinator will be responsible for recruiting and managing a team of volunteers, befrienders and peer mentors who will help young people to improve their physical and mental well-being by supporting them to access a range of exciting activities, helping them to find new interests and hobbies and engage in healthy activities in the community

You will undertake the role of Volunteer, Befriending and Peer Mentoring Co-ordinator reporting to the Children's Service Manager and acting as line manager to the service's volunteers.

The successful candidate will be required to carry out the following duties (in addition to those on the generic job description):- 

• Continued development and delivery of the Volunteer, Befriending and Peer Mentoring element of the Bloom service.
• Recruit and train volunteers, befrienders and peer mentors
• Effectively match volunteers/befrienders/peer mentors to support young people
• Effectively utilise the Barnardo's specialist volunteer management system (Vol 1)
• Provide ongoing support and supervision of volunteers
• Keep accurate statistical information and assist in producing service performance reports for the organisation and funders.
• Support project engagement events and empower young people to share their voice and ensure that Bloom continues to be a young person led project
• Assist in quality assurance of every aspect of the service
• The service requires flexibility of work as we support young people around their needs.

You will have: 

• Experience of working within a volunteering setting preferably at the level of co-ordinating the service this can be in a employment, education, training or volunteering setting
• Experience of recruiting, inducting and retaining volunteers
• Experience of keeping statistical information and completing performance reports for funders
• The ability to line manage  volunteers
• An understanding of the needs of care experienced/vulnerable young people and an awareness of the factors impacting on their lives

Bloom is made up of three elements all of which work together:

Life Coaching - there is a dedicated life coach

Giving young people the power to unlock their own potential for positive change, by providing them with the tools to build resilience, improve wellbeing and understand themselves better. Coaching empowers young people to think about and move forward positively in their lives, by creating and working towards specific goals through 1:1 sessions with our life coach. 

Volunteer, befriending and peer mentoring - there is a dedicated volunteer coordinator

• Volunteers – to help with activities
• Befriending - members of the local community befriend and provide ongoing assistance to service users are moving to independence
• Peer mentors – care experienced adults who can offer invaluable guidance to care experienced young people by drawing on their own experiences

Activities there are 2 engagement workers 

Giving young people regular opportunities to get together to experience activities not easily accessed by care experienced young people. Led by the expressed wishes of young people they could be experiences such as sports, adventuring, outdoor events, gardening clubs, cooking clubs.

Additional Information:

You must have the ability to travel independently to meet the requirements of the post.

You must demonstrate in your application that you currently use the skills outlined above, and in the Job Description/Person Specifications, or have used them previously in employment, education, training, volunteering etc.

This contract is for 25 hours a week to cover the maternity leave of the substantive post holder until 31st March 2026 .

Your main office base will be at Barnardo's Swansea, Heol Cadifor, Penlan, Swansea but you will be expected to work out and about in Swansea and Neath.

When completing your application please refer to your skills knowledge and experience in relation to the Person Specification, Job Description and Additional Information document. This should be done with an understanding of the context of the service described.

Need more information?

If you require any further information about this opportunity, please contact Christine Parry (email address can be found via the job vacancy link on our website).

Please note due to the high volume of applications for some posts, this advert might close before the displayed closing date. We recommend that you apply for this role as soon as possible.

Pay & Reward Framework

We know that our colleagues go above and beyond in delivering our vital work, driven by their passion and commitment to Barnardo's values.  We also know that we can only realise our ambitions and achieve better outcomes for more children, thanks to the talent, hard work and creativity of our people. 

For all these reasons, we are committed to a new approach to pay and reward, to ensure it is fair, attractive and progressive, which was rolled out in April 2023. This is a positive change for the charity, and a part of our People & Culture Strategy. It will assist us in supporting colleagues to belong, thrive and grow in their colleague journey at Barnardo's and in time will offer clear routes of progression for colleagues in both their career and their pay. 

Whilst the full pay band and salary range is advertised, our approach to starting salaries is to appoint between the minimum to mid-point of the pay band – this ensures that pay steps are available to reward our colleagues annually based on their contribution to excellence and alignment to our values and behaviours.  More details on Barnardo's pay framework can be found upon application.