Community Placement Volunteer

Community Placement Volunteers support young people who are carrying out hours of ‘reparation’ in the community. Reparation is a term used to describe an element of a young person’s court order whereby he or she undertakes to take part in activities aimed at ‘repairing the harm’ caused by offences he or she may have committed. This role is great for anyone interested in working ‘hands on’ with young people and training will be given to help you to carry out the role.  Activities may include helping out at sports sessions, helping in in the community at charity organisations or assisting on community projects such as gardening etc. The aim of our projects is to help to give something back to the local community and also repair the harm caused to a victim, so you’ll often be doing more than just helping young people!

About the organisation

The Portsmouth Youth Offending Team is a group of professionals commissioned by the local authority to support young people aged 10-17 who break the law.

Some of our young people are subject to court orders that require them to engage with reparation work within the local community. Reparation is a way a young person can assist a social enterprise, charity, school, local resident and other services by repairing the damage that they have caused due to their actions.

This can be in the form of painting, baking, coaching, gardening, cleaning and much more...

The Portsmouth Youth Offending Team are looking for volunteers to assist our young people in completing their reparation tasks. Our volunteers are highly trained individuals that form positive relationships with our young people, and can encourage them to engage with their local community and equally give them a chance to become a positive role model themselves.

**Please check your Junk email folder in case any emails end up here, we will be touch with you within a few days by email. Friendly reminder that the charities/organisations emails may end up here too. **

Skills

As a Community Placement volunteer you will be expected to:

• Be non-judgemental and able to communicate with young people in a way that they can fully understand what is expected of them.

• Help run small group or one-to-one activities with young people from a variety of backgrounds and with different levels of individual need and abilities.

• Be ‘hands on’ and take part in activities whilst offering encouragement and support to the young people and challenging inappropriate behaviour where necessary.

• Help staff and other volunteers set ground rules and explain tasks to the young people to ensure all activities run safely and everyone can get involved.

• Help staff and other volunteers explain the meaning of reparation to young people; the benefits to both Victims/Community and young people.

• Recognise the individual needs and learning styles of each young person and work with everyone fairly and respectfully.

• Carry out your role with patience, commitment and enthusiasm.

• Attend relevant training courses, one-to-one supervision and group meetings.

• Inform staff about any issues of concern, particularly in relation to safeguarding.

• Complete all necessary paperwork in required time limits.

• Be available during the week/at weekends for a reparation session at least 1 session across a 2 week period or 3-4 sessions per month.

• Live within the city boundaries and have access to reliable transport as you may need to sometimes collect young people and possibly take equipment to a placement.

• Carry out your volunteering in line with Portsmouth City Council guidelines on safeguarding, confidentiality, equality and diversity and health and safety.