Volunteer Mentor - Children, Young People and Families

Are you a proactive, collaborative and compassionate individual with experience of working with socially excluded young people and adults? Looking for a highly rewarding new opportunity?

If so, St Giles has an exciting opportunity for a Children, Young People and Families Volunteer Mentor, where you will play an integral role in our team by supporting children and young people who are on the ‘edge-of-care’ through holistic whole-family specialist support.

About St Giles Trust 

An ambitious, well-established charity that helps people facing adversity to find jobs, homes and the right support they need.  Central to our ethos is our belief that people with first-hand experience of successfully overcoming issues such as an offending background, homelessness, addictions and gang involvement, hold the key to positive change in others.  

About this key role

As our Children, Young People and Families Volunteer Mentor, you will focus on supporting Caseworkers delivering mentoring and specialist support for children, young people and their families, with the children on the edge of entering the care system and young people at risk of violence.  We will count on you to develop and maintain effective relationships with Local Authority teams and other relevant agencies, ensuring a steady flow of referrals to the project, while also working collaboratively with other professionals such as Social Care teams, professionally representing St Giles.

You will support the completion of initial needs assessments with clients, helping them to develop individual action plans and regularly review them to assess progress, carry out and review thorough risk management plans, plus provide a client-led support service that responds to individual needs, including support with housing, finances, parenting, health, ETE and criminal justice.

What we are looking for

• To have lived, personal experience of the Care System, Criminal Justice System, and/or being involved in a gang or knife crime 
• Knowledge of anti-discriminatory working practices, and the implications of both within the working environment
• Practical application of diversity awareness and unconscious bias in employment
• Ability to demonstrate knowledge and awareness of the issues faced by our client group, in particular barriers faced by people with lived in experience
• Excellent interpersonal, relationship-building and communication skills, verbal and written 
• A flexible, collaborative and professional approach to your work.

As an organisation that works with children and adults at risk we are committed to safeguarding, protecting and promoting the safety of our clients and successful applicants will require an Enhanced Child and Adult with Child Barred DBS Check.

We actively encourage people with personal experience of the criminal justice system or lived experience of the issues facing this client group to apply for this role.

We are an equity and inclusion confident employer. We welcome all applications and we particularly encourage applications from people of the global majority (black, brown, multi- heritage) and those who identify as disabled, neuroexpansive, neurodiverse, with any protected characteristics and/or social barriers or challenges. We value the empowering and informative impact that all lived experiences and diversity of thought can offer the organisation.

St Giles will guarantee to interview all disabled applicants who meet the minimum criteria set out in the Job Description for the vacancy.

We are looking for male applicants only. The Equality Act 2010, Schedule 9, Part 1, Paragraph 1 applies to this post.