Interested in counselling, youth work, social work, or mental health services?
We have an exciting opportunity for a telephone support volunteer providing listening support to children with mental health and education needs, as well as parent/carers on our Drop the Pressure Project. This could be an ideal position for you if you have a few hours to spare to make a real difference each week on this vital service to support mental health.
This service sits within our ‘Glow’ projects that was created to meet the demand for imaginative expert support for children and young people and their families who are impacted by mental health often correlated with special educational needs and disabilities.
A Bit About Us
Love Squared is a not-for-profit that works with children, young people and families impacted by social, emotional and mental health. It offers imaginative expert support for children and young people at both primary and secondary school age, and their families who are disadvantaged because of social, emotional, and mental health (SEMH) difficulties. We run a range of specialist services and projects to support children and young people who might be feeling anxious, stressed or suffering in silence. These range from small group therapeutic projects to mentoring to advice and advocacy. Our approach is holistic and is about sensitive joined up working where we really listen to what the young people need.
We work with children and young people at both primary and secondary school age who are disadvantaged because of social, emotional, and mental health (SEMH) difficulties. They often have a diagnosed mental health condition or are waiting for a diagnosis, and it is often correlated with a history of trauma or psychological distress, or another disability, learning need, or physical illness. Many of the children we work with are also affected by issues such as domestic violence, abuse, identity issues, bullying and many are young carers.
Whilst each child is affected differently, common issues that we see are: Problems accessing school either through non-attendance, or difficulty focusing and thriving at school, difficulties making friends leading to significant social isolation, issues with confidence and self-esteem which can lead to difficulties leaving the house or even their rooms for days at a time, panic attacks, suicidal attempts or ideation, self-harm, and difficulties accessing support and help from statutory services.
We want to make three key differences:
Your volunteer responsibilities will include:
Ideally you will have:
Role details
We require 1 shift per week (4hrs) during the school term. The project takes a break during the school holidays. The 4hr shift includes working on the telephone service and any follow-up care or appropriate escalation to the team. The Drop the Pressure listening support service currently runs weekly on Thursdays 4-8pm. The successful applicant must be able to regularly commit to these hours. However, if you are not able to do this but love the sound of the role, then do please let us know as we have other roles available and will go out of way to find opportunities that can work as long as it also meets the children’s needs!
What you will gain:
We are recruiting a number of volunteers over summer 2024 with the aim to start on the Drop the Pressure project in September/October.
Interested? Please email maddie@lovesquared.org.uk with a short paragraph on why you are interested in the role, as well as any relevant/related experience, and we'll take if from there!
We require all our volunteers to complete an application form (available on request) and attend an informal assessment and safeguarding training. These sessions are a compulsory element of our safer recruitment process for anyone joining a child or family facing role so we can safely match you to a project, and will be a chance to get to know you a little better and will involve a variety of informal (and hopefully fun!) reflective and scenario-based activities. We sadly can't get you started on a project until you've completed both of these sessions.
We are committed to equality of opportunity and welcome applicants from under-represented groups and diverse backgrounds and those who do not always get their voices heard.