Volunteer Children & Young Person's Wellbeing Mentor

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If you’d like to use your people and listening skills to support others to better wellbeing, then this role could be for you! Volunteers will support a child or young person (aged 11-17) by acting as a mentor to them. They’ll provide the opportunity for the younger person to continue to build their resilience and confidence to improve their mental health and wellbeing through the development of real life social and practical skills.

The Children & Young Person’s Wellbeing Mentor Volunteer Role

At SWW Mind, we know that the importance of maintaining and improving children and young people’s health is so important. Healthy children are more likely to become healthy adults. As part of this role, volunteers will mentor a child or young person and support them to put together and carry out a Wellbeing Action Plan.

The aim of the mentoring programme is to provide the opportunity for the younger person to continue to build their resilience and confidence and improve their wellbeing through developing practical and social skills in line with the ' 5 Ways to Wellbeing’. Volunteers will equip the child or young person to develop coping strategies and mechanisms for self-help.

Volunteers will:

• Meet weekly with a child or young person, either online or in person (this may be a combination of both depending on the needs of the person)
• Actively listen to the child or young person
• Support the child or young person to put together and carry out a Wellbeing Action Plan
• Prepare for ongoing sessions to check in on how things are going
• Provide ongoing support until the sessions are completed (we anticipate each child or young person receiving up to 6 sessions as part of this programme)

Skills and Experience

This volunteering role does not require any specific skills or experience. We are looking for people who are:

• Keen to help make a difference in the local community
• Able to demonstrate empathy and a friendly and welcoming attitude
• Good communicators who are able to actively listen
• Willing to learn and be creative in finding solutions
• Able to demonstrate good organisation and planning skills and reliability
• Able to support and empower others to identify and make beneficial changes to support their wellbeing

We welcome volunteers from all backgrounds, including those with lived experience of mental health challenges or with an academic interest in the issues that affect mental health.

What we can offer you

• A chance to develop knowledge and experience of supporting people with mental health needs and grow practical skills such as relationship-building and communication skills
• A quality training programme, including a recognised Mental Health First Aid qualification once you have been volunteering with us for a few months
• Reimbursement of reasonable expenses
• A reference at the end of your commitment
• An opportunity to make a real difference

Screening

South Warwickshire and Worcestershire Mind follows a volunteer recruitment process that requires all volunteers to undertake an interview and provide references. Volunteers who have contact with the people who use our services will also need to complete an Enhanced DBS check (at no extra cost to volunteers). This is to protect the vulnerable groups who use our services.

Training

Full induction and training will be provided for this volunteering position, including essential eLearning and taught training.