Staying Well Drop-In Volunteer

Staying Well Worthing is West Sussex Mind’s out of hours crisis prevention service. The service is available as a drop-in from 5-10.30pm during the week, and from midday-10.30pm on weekends. Volunteers within the Staying Well Worthing service can provide support in a variety of ways.  It can be through supporting or running an activity or workshop or helping individual service users on a one-to-one basis.

Location: 

• The Annexe (Methold House), the Guildcare building, North Street, Worthing BN11 1DU

• Potentially, other WS Mind services or community locations, if supporting individuals to access other services or activities

Time commitment: 

A minimum commitment of 3 hours to 6 hours per week by mutual agreement (depending on the needs of the service and your availability).

This can be is varied so this will depend on each piece of work. Some work (facilitating a group) may be on-going and regular and will take place within the service’s opening hours, usually concluding by around 9.30pm. Some work (supporting an individual) may be time limited, for example a few sessions. This may take place within the service opening hours or may take place during office hours depending on the activity.

• Providing time-focused wellbeing checks with individuals.

• Supporting individuals to use the “safe space” at Staying Well for informal support and distraction, to help them feel better in the moment

• To support in the facilitation of timetabled activities to help people manage their wellbeing – independently, or with other members of the Staying Well team

• Help individuals to meet their personal goals

• To help Staying Well Service users to access groups and activities outside of Staying Well, either in addition to accessing Staying Well, or as a means of supporting them to move on

• Volunteers are expected to follow West Sussex Mind procedures and guidelines. Peer Volunteers are expected to engage in supervision and to let staff know if they are unable to fulfil a commitment which they have agreed to

• To be reliable, motivated, friendly and approachable, supportive, empathic, empowering, patient

• To undertake appropriate training or be able to demonstrate they have a recent equivalent training, skills and experience

• Good communication skills, good time keeping, understanding of boundaries, able to work within the scope of confidentiality, objective approach

• Lived experience of managing own mental health and wellbeing desirable but not essential

• Welcome you to West Sussex Mind with a package of training and information needed to carry out the role

• You will meet new people, have the opportunity to learn new skills and take part in regular in-house training

• We will reimburse pre-agreed expenses in line with West Sussex Mind’s policy

• We will check-in regularly to ensure you are enjoying your volunteering role through 1-2-1 supervision, volunteer meetings, social and learning networking days

• Opportunity to develop skills and confidence around supporting others which could lead to wider volunteering or work in the sector

For selected applicants there will be an interview with the Service/Project Managers

If successful, 2 references will be requested as part of the recruitment checks and 6 essential e-learning modules will be required to be completed before starting in the volunteer role.

Because the role involves working closely with vulnerable people, we need to complete an Enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service check.

Support will be available for any technical, language or literary support required.

For more information, please email volunteering@westsussexmind.org