Can you help us to provide grieving children with a safe place to explore their grief?
This role involves working directly with children who attend our family programme. The programme is designed for children aged 6-11 years old and uses stories, play and craft activities to help children to explore, express and understand their grief.
Family programme volunteers will be part of a team supporting a lead worker to run the group.
The role includes building trusting relationships with children (and the parents/carers who attend alongside them) and encouraging the children to take part in activities. Activities are pre-planned and are themed around memories, feelings, coping strategies and support networks. The role will also include general tasks such as setting up, clearing up, and making refreshments.
There is scope to develop leadership roles, should volunteers like to take this route.
This role is within a small team which consists of paid staff, volunteers and trustees all of whom are
passionate about the work we do.
This is an exciting opportunity within an expanding charity. Volunteers should have an interest in working
with children and families within a group setting and have a deep empathy for the objectives of the charity.
All volunteers are subject to an enhanced DBS check, at the expense of the charity. Reasonable out of
pocket expenses can also be paid, for example travel costs.
You will need to be at least 18 years old to carry out this role.
Hours required:
Each programme runs over 4 Saturdays at our base at Westlea Primary School, Swindon. The time for
volunteers is 9am – 2pm on each Saturday. We run the programme 3 times annually, generally at the start,
middle and later part of the year.
We would love for volunteers to help with each programme we run (3 a year, equalling 12 Saturday
sessions per year). However, we recognise that life can be busy so if this is not possible we ask volunteers
to commit to at least 2 programmes a year (which is 8 Saturday sessions a year). This helps us to ensure
consistency and quality across our programmes, for the benefit of the children.
Dates of programmes are circulated in a timely manner and volunteers are asked to commit to dates they
can attend.
Volunteers are also required to take part in:
- induction training, which is held over 4 evenings (1 evening is in-person in West Swindon, the
others are online) - online safeguarding training at least once every 3 years
- a team meeting in person in Swindon once a year (this is normally a weekday evening)
Volunteers can help more if they’d like to. For example, there will be ad-hoc events during the year that
volunteers are welcome to help with – this includes events for our families and fundraising events. There
will also be voluntary opportunities for additional training that may be of interest.
Key Responsibilities
- To work with service users within a group programme
- To make service users feel welcome and comfortable
- To build trusting relationships with service users (children and their parents/carers)
- To encourage service users to take part in activities to the best of their abilities
- To support each child to explore their grief in a non-judgemental manner
- To help with general tasks such as setting up, tidying up and making refreshments
- To work within national and local Treehouse guidelines and policies ensuring that practice is standardised, ethical and safe. This includes child protection, complaints and grievance procedures
- To participate in supervision both individually and as part of the Treehouse volunteer team
Key Working Relationships
- Children and their families
- Treehouse volunteers
- Treehouse colleagues
Skills and Experience
Experience of working with children and families would be an advantage, as would an understanding of
grief. However, training can be provided.
Some of the children who have used our service have identified the following qualities as important:
- A good listener
- Understanding
- Accepting of the different ways people grieve
Support for volunteers:
Volunteers will receive support from the lead worker running the programme, including a group de-brief
directly after each session (after the families leave). Volunteers also have other opportunities for support
alongside the other volunteers.
Volunteers are also supported via our Employee and Volunteers Wellbeing and Mental Health Policy.
Volunteers are part of a wider Wiltshire Treehouse team who are all passionate about the work we do and
are supportive of each other.