Volunteer For Us
Volunteers are a vital part of our service delivery at Child Dynamix. We have welcomed volunteers since we became a charity in 2005. Throughout this time, we have provided a range of volunteering opportunities across our themes of work.
We recognise that people have varying amounts of time to give, and skills to share. We know some people want to volunteer to help progress their training or to prepare for work. Others wish to give back to their community. Whatever the reason we want to help you, to help children, young people and their family.
Current opportunities
At the moment we are looking for Parent Mentor volunteers – parents with at least one child aged 10 – 16 years who can regularly give time to another parent. With training you would support by offering time to listen, and draw in your own parenting experiences alongside your training to help another parent.
Here’s what some of the current Parent Mentor volunteer have to say:
“I found the training informative and fun, I enjoyed the interactivity”
“I am learning and gaining a lot of knowledge from the training”
“It has helped me prepare for a job and get used to working.”
Through the Parent Mentor volunteer opportunity, mentors can also gain accredited learning. The Introduction Course which all mentors complete before they formally volunteer, was developed by Child Dynamix is a course accredited by ABC Awards & Certa Awards.
Investors in Volunteers
We take our volunteering responsibilities very seriously and since 2014 have undertaken the Investors In Volunteer Standard. This means we can check that we are doing everything we possibly can to ensure those who volunteer for us do so safely, and have the best possible experience. Here are some comments from our last report and you can read the whole report by following the link below.
Each year we celebrate the contributions our volunteer give with a Thank You event, usually held in Volunteer’s Week. As you can see they are informal events to give thanks.
Quotes from the Investors in Volunteers report from 2018
The commitment to volunteering, and recognition that volunteers are essential and integral to Child Dynamix is strongly communicated throughout the organisation. The volunteer policy sets out the organisation’s values, principles and its aims and objectives for volunteering, and includes its commitment to equal opportunities, it also highlights the importance of diversity. The policy has a Volunteer Charter that sets out 10 principles of good practice that staff and departments are committed to.
“Many volunteers had been service users and their journey can be summed up by this comment from a volunteer, “I came through the family support with my children, then I helped out, then I became a volunteer. Staff really encouraged and supported me through this.”
“We are always looking at volunteer’s journeys, from being a service-user to becoming a volunteer – we support them 100% on this journey”, “The benefits volunteers bring to the organisation and its beneficiaries are fantastic!”
“Volunteers bring in new ideas, we learn new things from them and we are able to get more things done – they massively increase our capacity and are so passionate.”
During an informal interview, information is gathered from the volunteer to identify what their skills, strengths and interests are and what they are hoping to gain as a volunteer. A volunteer interviewed as part of the assessment said:
“We are definitely matched to roles, we talked about what role might be best for me – it was great, no pressure to decide either, really flexible”. Members of staff explained, we look at matching volunteers to particular areas. Potential volunteers who might be unsure of which area or role they would like to apply to, Child Dynamix encourages them to complete the recruitment process, then they would be offered taster sessions before they commit to a particular role.”
Volunteers are regularly asked to provide feedback on their experiences including recommendations, complaints and compliments through, for example, feedback at the end of training sessions, the use of feedback forms, their comments in meetings, in their supervisions, and ‘We value your views’ ideas cards and boxes are situated at each site for volunteers, service users and staff to use. Child Dynamix also carries out an annual volunteer survey and the results are used to inform future policy, working arrangements and to evidence their commitment to volunteers.
