Changes is part of Bristol's One City response to the cost of living crisis. Bristol has created a network of 'welcoming spaces' across the city which are open to all. These spaces are places to keep warm and provide opportunities to share food, charge phones, connect with others, receive advice and access wellbeing support. Changes are running weekly wellbeing groups within welcome spaces across the city.

Changes runs peer support meetings for people experiencing mental distress. Operating these groups is the core of our activities and in order to run our meetings effectively we need volunteers to facilitate these meetings.

The Welcome Space Wellbeing Groups have a similar premise to our other support meetings with the additional element of being spaces to get support on the emotional impact of cost of living issues and the option of being signposted to other organisations that may be able to help if required.

Our groups are open to all (18+), offer free support with no requirement for a referral, a mental health issue (or formal diagnosis), or a limit to the number of sessions anyone can attend. The sessions provide members the opportunity to share anything that is on their mind, if they wish to do so, whilst the group listens and supports each other. The group provides acknowledgment, reflection and acceptance to each member after they have shared.

We have already set up four welcome space wellbeing groups and plan to expand them but we can’t do this without volunteer facilitators.

As a volunteer you would the opportunity to be part of something meaningful and to develop and learn new skills. Our volunteer facilitators will be responsible for creating inclusive, safe, non-judgemental, empathetic spaces that enable members to connect and support each other. Members who have attended our wellbeing groups have said it has helped them to feel empowered, build resilience, connection and helped them to make changes in their lives for the better.

Being a facilitator is a responsible position, where vulnerable adults rely on our service, therefore we need volunteers to be dependable and committed when taking on the role. Being a facilitator is an extremely rewarding and challenging role.

We offer comprehensive training and supervision for volunteers. Training consists of 3 three hour evening online training sessions. Additionally we offer a cost of living training session and the opportunity to attend live Q+A sessions.

We highly recommend that throughout the training process (and, if possible, before you start training), you attend a group/ groups so you can get used to being part of them and understand how facilitation works.

Time required:
• Commitment to one or two groups (2.5 hours each) every week.
• 3 hours for supervision and reflective practice 1x quarter
• We are a small charity and training new volunteers roughly costs us £300 so we
ask that facilitators commit to volunteering for at least 7 months.

Our groups run Monday-Friday with most groups running during the daytime or early evening.

What we offer:

Induction training for the role

Continuous support in form of supervision and reflective practice

Reasonable Travel expenses reimbursed (Public transport, fuel mileage).

Please see the the Welcome Space Wellbeing Groups Facilitator role description in attachments for more details.