Can you make a weekly in-person visit to an older person at risk of isolation, supporting them to connect with their local community? This project matches volunteer befrienders with older people in the community in need of support going out. We ask that volunteers make a commitment to how often they will visit and participate in periodic supervision and support sessions.
About Age UK Bristol:
At Age UK Bristol we help make sure that everyone in Bristol can love later life. We do this by supporting and empowering older people, helping other organisations to work together, and championing the interests of older people in the city.
Our organisational objectives are to:
We do this by:
Volunteers are important and valued members of the team at Age UK Bristol. We will do our best to make your volunteer experience enjoyable and rewarding.
Buddy Up Befriending aims to:
This role is carried out in-person (not over the phone).
You will
We are looking for people who:
Training
We offer an introduction training and follow up support sessions
Suggested Hours
In-person visits/meet ups may last for around an hour, times to be agreed between befriender and befriendee. A monthly one-to-one supervision session is held with the project’s manager.
We also encourage volunteers to take part in a group support session every 6 weeks - 2 months.
** Please note that to ensure support from paid staff is always available, all volunteer roles are carried out Monday to Friday between 9am and 5pm.**
Location
In-person visits are carried out in your befriendee’s home or in a public setting such as a café or local activity.
Expenses
We have a number of options regarding covering the cost of the telephone calls which we can discuss. You will not be out of pocket as a result of your volunteering.
Next steps
For further questions, please contact Age UK Bristol’s volunteer co-ordinator, Jay Wilkinson. To apply for the role, please fill in and return a Volunteer Application Form via email to Jay.
Please click on this link to download a volunteer application form from our volunteering webpage, which you can find by scrolling down the page. You can also download an application from this Voscur ad. Please return completed applications to jaywilkinson@ageukbristol.org.uk Looking forward to hearing from you!