Volunteer Mentors wanted! With the end of the year fast approaching, are you looking for a new opportunity to give back? Why not volunteer with us!
We’re now looking for new mentors in Glasgow. As a volunteer mentor, you’ll help vulnerable young people aged 14-25 to meet their full potential, by working with them to achieve personal goals. Training for this is expected to take place in January 2023.
The young people we support on our mentoring programme are displaying “at risk” signs. These signs may include poor performance or non attendance at school, welfare issues, lack of positive social networks, anxiety, and bullying. In some cases, they may be facing more extreme issues such as substance misuse and criminal offences.
What’s Involved
We match a mentor with a young mentee with similar interests, to work together towards a goal of the young person’s choice. This can be pretty much anything, and is often a recreational or leisure activity. We’ve had our young people choose to do everything from cookery and music classes, to rock-climbing and ballet lessons!
Through undertaking these activities together, our mentors help our mentees address the challenges they’re facing, and build towards positive outcomes.
Impact
Your role as a mentor is to provide a supportive relationship to help a young person achieve a realistic goal of their choice. The emphasis in doing this is to connect the young person with social, cultural and leisure opportunities. This encourages them to build their confidence and independence. They can then go on to meet their potential through developing new skills, and forming positive social networks.
Mentors also often support and assist their young person to maintain, re-engage with or seek out education, training and employment opportunities. Through building a supportive relationship, our volunteer mentors increase the chances of a young person going on to lead an independent and fulfilling life.
What You’ll Need
All of our volunteers must be happy to undergo an enhanced PVG check prior to being matched. Move On policies and procedures, including health and safety and safeguarding, must be followed at all times. It’s also important that our volunteers respect the confidentiality of our young people. This includes ensuring that any information shared in confidence stays within the appropriate Move On channels. Don’t worry though – we’ll cover all of this during your training, and you’ll always have support in place to keep you right!
You’ll also need to be reliable. You’re supporting a vulnerable young person, so it’s key that you’re able to show up on time to meetings with them. This will help them develop a sense of stability and trust within the relationship. Matches may meet for anywhere from six months up to two years, and we expect that the recruitment, training and PVG checking process may take up to 3 months. For this reason, we ask that you please only apply if you’re confident you can be available to volunteer for at least the next 9 months.
Above all, we look for volunteers with good communication skills, who want to make a difference to a young person’s life. It’s really important that you’re able to listen to our young people, and keep an open, non-judgmental attitude. Some of our young people come to us from chaotic backgrounds; it’s important that you can be accepting of this. We’ll of course be on hand to help you navigate this at all times.
We’re also particularly short of male mentors at present, so if you fit this bill, please don’t hesitate to apply!
Support
We’ll provide full and in-depth volunteer training well before you’re matched with a young person. This takes place over several weeks, so you have time to absorb the information, and get answers to any questions that might come up. We want you to feel fully supported, and ready to take on your new role. Our next training sessions will take place in January 2023 – dates TBC.
After you’ve been matched with a young person, one of our Move On staff team will take you both out a couple of times. This gives you both the chance to settle into the match and get to know each other, while receiving ongoing support. Once you’re both comfortable, you’ll start to meet up one-on-one with your young person in Glasgow for a couple of hours of every week.
Once you start meeting with your match one-on-one, you’ll still always have a dedicated member of the Move On staff team available to provide you both with ongoing support. We place an equal importance on the well-being of both volunteers and service users. We’ll help make sure you understand your own limits, and can put in place personal boundaries around them. We’re committed to helping both you and your mentee get the absolute most out of your experience with us.
We can also help with arranging the activities, especially if you’re planning something more adventurous! Full expenses are provided, so you’ll never be out of pocket for anything you do together.
You’ll get the chance to get to know your fellow mentors too! We run our Volunteer Connection Group once a month, where you can exchange your ideas and experiences with volunteers across our various programmes, and we also hold regular social events.
The Rewards
Mentoring with us is often as life-changing for our mentors as it is for the young people we support. As well as taking on a rewarding volunteering experience, and genuinely helping a vulnerable young person, our mentors regularly tell us that they feel more confident, less stressed, and have a better sense of purpose in their life. Some have even changed their whole career direction, and now help young people full time!
Our mentoring service is also a unique opportunity to enhance your CV. Volunteering as a mentor helps improve your communication and leadership skills. An increasing number of employers also highly value volunteering experience.
It’s also a great way to learn new skills – whether you’re learning to speak a new language, playing a sport, or trying your hand at arts and crafts! Most importantly, you’ll make meaningful new connections, and have fun!
How To Apply
If this sounds like the volunteering opportunity for you, please complete our application form and equal opportunities monitoring form. Please return this to Rebecca on rebecca@moveon.org.uk.
More Information
For further information please download our mentor information pack, or contact Rebecca on the email above, or 07395788690. You can also find information on our website about our mentoring services, or other volunteering opportunities.
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For general enquiries, please fill out our online contact form, and a member of the relevant team will be in touch ASAP.