Who are we
Caregivers Connected Gateshead is a free and confidential service, provided by Carers Federation. We support Adult Caregivers, Young Adult Caregivers and Young Carers in Gateshead. The new service is a partnership approach funded between Gateshead Council and the North East and North Cumbria Integrated Care Board (ICB).
What is the role?
We are looking for someone who is active, enthusiastic and reliable to help us deliver a range of fun, entertaining and educational activities for young carers we work with. This could be helping us deliver a craft session, cooking class or an outdoor activity out in the woods or at the beach. Can you help create a warm and welcoming role for you. We’re looking for supportive and fun volunteers who can help a range of young people, including those who have challenging behaviour.
What’s Involved?
We deliver our sessions across Gateshead so you need to be willing and able to travel, ideally by car. We’ll cover your travel costs but might need you to get somewhere independently for a specific start time. The session may only be for a few hours on a Saturday morning or could last all day so you will need to be flexible. There will always be a training member of staff at the activities so you will follow their directions to help deliver a safe and engaging sessions. We plan our sessions months in advance which means you will know exactly what you’re signing up for. This also means we can give you the opportunity to get involved and helping to plan and organise what we deliver.
Here are some of the tasks you may find yourself supporting:
- Setting up the space, cleaning and moving furniture or setting up equipment on site.
- Registration of young people attending the sessions.
- Having friendly chats with regulars and new faces.
- Encouraging the children to take part in the activities, talk to each other and feel included.
- Providing feedback on sessions.
Skills and Experience you need
There are a number of skills and qualities that are desirable to have to carry out this role:
- Friendly, fun and outgoing.
- Reliable.
- Empathetic and understanding of the needs of young carers.
- Flexible and a willingness to ‘get stuck in’.
- The confidence to use your initiative.
- Great communication and listening skills.
- Active and able to keep up – this is really important for outdoor activities.
- Resilient.
- Willing and able to follow instructions, policies and procedures.
Do you have an area of expertise that you think might be useful? We would be happy to discuss how we can use your skills, experience or interests to support out work.
What we think you will get out of it
- A sense of satisfaction for a job well done.
- A fun interesting and challenging volunteering role.
- Professional development for anybody interested in supporting young and vulnerable people.
How we will support you
There will be members of our team present at each activity who will provide direction on what your role will be at each session.
Our Volunteer Coordinator will have regular monthly contact with you, providing support and guidance throughout your time volunteering with us.
We will support you to access a range of training courses that would support you to fulfill this role.
What else we will need
Since this role will involve regular working with vulnerable people we will need to complete an enhanced DBS check. This will not cost you anything, it is simple to do and we’ll support you through the process.
Ready to get started?
If this volunteering opportunity sounds great to you, we’d love to chat and start your journey with us! Please complete our online expression of interest form and our team will contact you as soon as possible.