Our Community Bases Services team in Teignbridge support families and single adults living in supported accommodation to secure, and prepare to move into, alternative accommodation as quickly as possible and to provide them with the tools and skills to sustain long term accommodation.
The families and individuals we support have had to move into temporary supported accommodation, which could be for a number of reasons. All of them have experienced, or are at severe risk of homelessness. We work with every family and individual to help ensure their needs are met, and to help to prepare them to move in to their own accommodation.
As a volunteer, you would be a vital part of this support, adding extra capacity and experience to our team, meaning we can continue to improve the quality of experience and prospects of those we are supporting.
Every volunteer experience and contribution is different, but our volunteers typically contribute by:
- Spending time building rapport and trust with residents
- Helping them to understand their options, and to make informed decisions about their next steps
- Providing emotional support throughout, including after they have moved to help them to manage the transition
- Practical support to help them with anything else they need to become independent, e.g. helping them to set up bills and payments
- Coordinating activities with residents to help them build their independent living skills, including cooking/meal preparation, budgeting etc.
We support people at two sites: one in Dawlish and a larger premises in Newton Abbot. Volunteers are welcome to support at either, or both. Once families and individuals have moved on, we support them to settle in their new home, which could be across Devonshire.
No formal qualifications are required, but the following skills are particularly valuable within this role:
- Empathy, compassion and kindness towards others, and adopting a non-judgemental approach
- Resilience, as supporting people in crisis can be hugely rewarding but also stressful.
- Reliability - we won't ever pressurise you into doing something you don't want to do, but do ask that you follow through on what you commit to.
- Experience of supporting someone in crisis, in a personal or professional capacity.
- Being able to respond to any Safeguarding concerns to intervene to protect someone from harm, as set out in CCP’s Safeguarding Policy (training is provided).
If you would like to submit an expression of interest directly to us, please copy and paste the below into the address bar:
https://form.typeform.com/to/GQo9AOMP
Or to find out more, drop us a visit at www.ccp.org.uk/volunteering
Safer Recruitment statement:
Safe Recruitment is at the heart of everything we do. As this is a role working with vulnerable people, we would support you to complete a DBS check (free of charge) and carry out a referencing check. We value lived experience, so having convictions, cautions, reprimands or final warnings won't necessarily mean you can't volunteer. We are happy to discuss these or any other concerns with you as part of your joining process.