Befriender (Children and Adults (Scotland))

Barnardo's is committed to providing 'Better Outcomes for More Children'. Our children's services volunteers help the charity to deliver essential services in local communities, providing support to over 300,000 children, young people and their families. This role provides a great opportunity to join our fantastic children's services and help make a real difference.

Barnardo's Befrienders work with young people a 1:1 basis, offering practical assistance and emotional support, to build their self-confidence, coping mechanisms and positive relationships. The work could be focused on a particular need, such as confidence building, or it could be more focused around supporting the young person to access local community groups.

We are looking for volunteers, with a passion for making a difference in young people's lives, with a friendly and approachable attitude and an ability to engage young people, empowering them to take steps towards improving their situation and achieving their goals.

The opportunity we add to Vol1 will include the long advert text from the volunteer role profile. Please take a look at this in the role profiles by clicking here. If you would like us to add any additional information to the long advert text (such as service information, specific groups the volunteer will be supporting and age ranges) please type this into the space below.

In Perth and Kinross, the children and young people we support will be or have been affected by parental substance misuse, poor parental mental health and domestic violence. They may also have experienced impact of poverty, neglect and abuse, homelessness, their own poor mental health and emerging substance misuse issues, as well as a care histories and behavioural issues. We also support children and young people who have an additional support need. As part of our whole family approach we also offer support to parents and carers who have also been affected by substance misuse, poor mental health or domestic violence. That may be the parent with the substance use issues, the non-using parent or kinship carers struggling to cope.

We are looking for volunteers from 18+ to be able to provide 1:1 or 2:1 support to a child or an adult once a week or once a fortnight for around 2 hours per session out and about in the community. The role can take place during the day (school hours), with a parent or could be in a school setting with a child/young person, after school, early evening or at weekends. The purpose of the role will vary but a volunteer could be linked with a child or adult to encourage the individual with new activities, to help them build relationships with peers, improve mental wellbeing and to build up their confidence. Activities could include going for walks, going to local parks, activities within the community, going swimming and going to a café for a chat. This opportunity allows people to gain experience working with children and adults. If you only would like to work with children or adults please refer to the other opportunities listed separately online and apply for the role connected to the age range you would like to support. We also look for volunteers to provide a listening ear to parents who are caring after children and young people with additional support needs.

We are also looking for volunteers who have experience and knowledge in supporting children and young people with additional support needs and who may have knowledge with using Makaton. Previous experience is not essential with children and young people with additional support needs but for some of our roles previous experience would be much welcomed.

Across Perth and Kinross we also do partnership working with Tayside Council on Alcohol and during the induction process you will learn about what TCA do and roles available with them. This partnership is to allow volunteers various opportunities across organisations to build up their experience.