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Community Schools Volunteer

  • VO96856

Description

Who Cares? Scotland are looking for volunteers who can provide a strong foundation to help strengthen their communities by helping Care Experienced children and young people engage in activities to build their skills and confidence and to be included, understood, respected, and valued in their communities.

The Community Schools volunteer role will work alongside their innovative and energetic Clackmannanshire Who Cares? Scotland project team and will lead and support on educating and raising awareness of Care Experience to Secondary School pupils and all school staff through assemblies, PSE sessions and drop-ins.

Community Schools Volunteers will help to raise awareness of Care Experience, work towards ending stigma and injustice that Care Experience people can face and be part of influencing transformational change. This role will help build community strengths for Care Experienced people and provide social networks to help build resilience and positive outcomes for children and young people.

To build on this school work and embed inclusion and belonging, the team are looking to develop a participation group for Care Experienced young people to attend weekly in the evenings. This role will involve interacting with young people through supporting and leading on a variety of activities e.g. arts/crafts/sports/general youth work at our weekly sessions as well as at their National events that happen throughout the year.

Would you like to share your skills and experience to help ensure young people understand the lives of Care Experienced young people and the challenges they can face.

Who Cares? Scotland is an organisation that invests in their people, relationships and promotes a positive working culture. It’s important to the group that the volunteers are included, involved and motivated to change society.

Who Cares? Scotland aim to recruit people with excellent qualities from a wide variety of backgrounds who share in our mission. They particularly welcome applications from individuals with Care Experience.

An information session regarding this new project and the requirements for the Volunteer role will be held on the 15th of June at 6pm via Zoom. The team running the project will be in attendance to give more information and answer any questions you might have. You can register your interest here - https://whocaresscotland.typeform.com/to/ANhspSm7

Organisation aims and objectives

Who Cares? Scotland provides professional, independent advocacy services in most local authority areas in Scotland. We work one on one with a young person to help them have a say in what is happening to them. We strive to provide advocacy that helps young people feel respected, included, listened to and understood. We’re independent to any care services a young person receives – this is crucial because we want young people to be supported and understood with no conflict of interest. We offer a wide range of groups, activities and events for care experienced people across Scotland. This is one of the many benefits of becoming a member of the Who Cares? Scotland family. The Scottish Government funds Who Cares? Scotland to provide a range of different training opportunities to Corporate Parents. Our training supports organisations to continually improve their policies, procedures and practice. Rather than provide the answers, our training brings care experienced people together with those at a strategic and operational level to plan the way forward. We seek to influence the development of legislation, policy and good practice which has an effect on the lives of care experienced young people. We believe that those who have been in care are the experts in their own experience. That means they have a lot to offer and must be consulted by those in power. Who Cares? Scotland has increasingly worked with care experienced people across Scotland to capture their views, experiences and suggestions for change in a range of areas. Our vision is supported by four key objectives: • Rights: We will support care experienced children and young people from across Scotland to claim their rights. • Belonging: We will create opportunities with care experienced people to connect with one another, understand their identity and build a strong sense of self and belonging to the care family. • Influencing: We will support care experienced people to be active in positively influencing their personal, social and political world in Scotland and beyond. • Pioneering: We will lead an ethical organisation with care experience at its heart. 2023/24 marks the launch of our brand-new project: Clackmannanshire Communities that Care. This is a programme aiming to span 5 years, run through STV funding, with staff presence in each of the 3 high schools. We will work to raise awareness of care experienced people across our entire school workforce and pupil roll, and within the wider communities these schools serve, to educate on unique challenges faced and to empower an all-community approach to support the achievement of better outcomes for all care experienced people.

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Restrictions

Minimum age: 18

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