The Clock Tower Sanctuary

Volunteer

Invaluable part of The Clock Tower Sanctuary

Volunteers are always welcomed, and as a project worker you will be responsible for delivering a support and advice service to homeless and insecurely housed 16-25yr olds.

We offer an accredited training programme and provide your travel expenses, food and drink on shift and monthly one to one supervision sessions.

The experience you will gain from volunteering at our frontline service will be invaluable if you desire to gain paid employment in the social health and welfare sector.

If you are interested in applying for a project worker post please read on, and if you agree with our principles and guidlines, complete and send the application form.

Volunteer job description

Find out what it takes

Duties:

Staff all areas of Day Centre
Ensure the Day Centre's boundaries are maintained by clients
Supervise all client's activities
Interview new clients
Deliver advice and appropriate signpostings to clients
Update client's files and signposting and referral logs
Provide ongoing support to clients

Personal Specification:

Good communication and interpersonal skills
Ability to work as part of a team
Work well in a crisis situation
Ability to prioritise needs
Assertiveness and listentening skills (ideal)
Able to commit to a minimum of six months volunteering
Commitment to attend the training programme and
Regular one to one supervision sessions
A sense of humour (fundamental)

Guidelines

What is expected from volunteers

Introduction

It is essential for the smooth running of the centre and the effective implementation of the centre’s policies to have a set of operating guidelines for the Clock Tower Sanctuary.

Equal Opportunities

The Clock Tower Sanctuary aims to be welcoming to volunteers and service users of all cultures, races, classes, sexuality and abilities. Please see the Equal Opportunities Policy.

Commitment

All volunteers are expected to work their agreed hours and give reasonable notice if they cannot do their shift. Frequently missed sessions will need to be discussed in supervision sessions. Volunteers are expected to be able to attend training and regular supervision sessions. Volunteers are expected to be able to commit themselves to volunteering at the project for a suitable length of time.

Boundaries

Volunteers are asked not to give their home address or telephone number to a client under any circumstances.
Friendships with clients and meeting clients away from the project is not appropriate behaviour and will be treated as a serious breach of the centre guidelines.
Volunteers are not able to accept gifts from clients, or give gifts to client.
If a client bumps into a client away from the centre they are expected to avoid acknowledging the client until the client has acknowledged the meeting. A client may not want to explain how they know the volunteer to anybody they are with.

Equal Opportunities

Equal opportunities reflects our aims and purposes, and is a fundamental part of working practice.

The Clock Tower Sanctuary recognises and supports a policy of Equal opportunities which reflects its aims and purposes. It aims to create a harmonious environment that outlaws discrimination.

The Clock Tower Sanctuary will neither discriminate against, nor treat any individual unfavourably on the grounds of gender, sexuality, race, nationality, age or ability. People with disabilities will be given an equal opportunity to participate in training and the Clock Tower Sanctuary will consider making reasonable adjustments to practices to ensure that a disabled person is not put at a substantial disadvantage.

It is the responsibility of every volunteer to eliminate discrimination by ensuring the practical application of the Equal opportunities policy and reporting incidents to the appropriate person. Any discrimination is totally unacceptable at the Clock Tower Sanctuary and anyone found to be breaching the centre&38;s policy will face disciplinary action.

Harassment is unwanted behaviour which causes distress and annoyance to the victim and the damage, tension and conflict which harassment creates makes for an unpleasant environment for all.

While racial and sexual are easily recognised forms of harassment, other grounds include age, health, physical appearance, religion, personal beliefs, ethnic and national origin, nationality, skin colour and sexual orientation.

Harassment may be persistent or isolated incidents and may be directed towards one individual or more. It can range from extremes (for example assault to less obvious forms of ignoring someone). Other examples include physical contact, jokes, offensive language, obscene gestures, isolation and exclusion from social activities, gossip, slander, graffiti, coercion for sexual favours, intrusion by pestering, spying and stalking.

Volunteers should not ignore behaviour which makes them feel uncomfortable; instead they should take action to ensure the behaviour stops, such as making it clear that sexual harassment will not be tolerated. Where such action fails or where more serious harassment occurs the victim should make a formal complaint. Allegations of harassment will be treated seriously and with confidentiality. They will be investigated thoroughly and dealt with promptly.

If such an allegation has been made maliciously the matter will be regarded with even greater seriousness and disciplinary action taken against the offending person.

Whatever the outcome, no person making a complaint about harassment should have to suffer victimisation for having made the complaint.

The Clock Tower Sanctuary realises that this policy will not guarantee that there will be no incidents involving harassment or of unlawful discrimination – it will be effective only when volunteers co-operate with measures expressed.

Application form

Application form for volunteers

If you understand and agree the principles on which The Clock Tower Sanctuary operates, and you think you have got what it takes to be a volunteer, then please download and fill out the application form, and then return it to us.

Form is available in Acrobat PDF format and requires Acrobat Reader application to be installed on your system.

Get Acrobat Reader Click here to get the Acrobat Reader.