Family Support Volunteers

For Chichester Diocesan Association For Family Support Work

We are looking for volunteers to support our practitioners in the local community .This could be from the home, parent/toddler groups as well as our play days and weekend breaks.

The above support can be a lifeline for parents reducing isolation, enabling peer support and therefore improving mental health and well-being.

This role might include:

Helping to set up a room at a group.
Welcoming parents.
Helping parents play with the children.
Serving refreshments.
Tidying up.
Modelling play in the home.
Support with form filling or on the telephone.
Support to access services in the community.

Skills

Communication skills – not only in communicating with the children, but being able to talk with parents and practitioners. This includes both sharing information clearly and listening to the parents attentively.
Decision-making skills – good judgment when responding to emergencies or difficult situations.
Interpersonal skills – you need to work well with people and be able to develop good relationships with parents, children, and other leaders.
Patience – working with children can be frustrating, so you need to be able to respond to overwhelming and difficult situations calmly.
Being playful – working with children and understanding how play develops their learning, can require physical stamina and sometimes, if you are able, you’ll need to get down to their level.

About Chichester Diocesan Association For Family Support Work

Established in 1890, to support families in the Chichester Diocese, we continue the pioneering work that our founders started and focus on supporting families with vulnerable children and young people. The pressures on families, arising from issues such as relationship breakdown, bereavement, illness, disability, and imprisonment give rise to many emotional and practical difficulties are amongst our concerns. We seek to help around 2000 families per year across East Sussex, West Sussex and the City of Brighton and Hove through individual support, group activities and residential breaks.
As an independent charity, our work is under-taken on a neutral basis, open to all people and volunteers form an integral part of that support. Whist faith platys a part in creating our ethos, we work with people of all faiths and none and our volunteers reflect the demography of the areas we work in.