Reino Unido

3070

Data de início: 01-04-2014

Data de fim: 01-04-2015

Vagas: 1

Duração: 12 mes(es)

Data limite de candidatura: 29-09-2013

Financiamento: Candidatura

Subsídio mensal (Dinheiro de bolso): 150 €

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Resumo: The hosting organization is situated in a large vibrant city in the north east of England. It has a mixed population with people from different backgrounds and vast areas of economic depression with a larger than average occurance of unemployment and homelessness. Just outside of Newcastle is very beautiful countryside within close reach and the city is 4 hours away by train.

The hosting organization has hosted EVS Volunteers successfully for many years and also has many community links as it works closely with other agencies to support the young people living there, so the immediate community is aware of the Youth programme. There are also some local volunteers at the project which helps with the socialisation of the EVS volunteers when they first arrive.

Accommodation and Allowance: The Volunteer will live with other EVS Volunteer in a large 5 bedroom house with their own bedroom and full cooking facilities. In addition to the Volunteers set allowance we provide them with additional pocket money and money to buy food making the total amount they receive £60 per week (roughly €75 a week)

Project details, Training and Support:

The host project – supports homeless young people (16 – 25 yrs old) by giving them somewhere to live and support to access training and employment opportunities. The project has 9 full time members of staff and EVS Volunteers. The manager and the staff team are directly involved with the volunteers, the staff as mentors and the manager as line manager.

Like all of our accomodation projects the young people at the project are homeless and unemployed when they arrive and our aim is to support them to the stage where they can move on to a residential project with less intensive support or their own accomodation. The project offers these young people social and, in some cases, educational and practical support. We aim to help these young people develop the life skills to be more independent and the communication skills to function in mainstream society.

In addition to the main EVS placement there are secondary placements either at other organization´s projects in the area such as our ‘Inline floating support project’ which works with young homeless people in the area helping them to get places to live and then supporting them after they move in to ensure that they keep their new tenancies until they are ready to live independently and our prison and outreach ‘One-to-One’ and ‘Outside Link’ teams helping young homeless people who have just left prison to secure tenancies and help with supporting them through their transition into the community. Also our Sports Development project which teaches young people how to be sports coaches and gain qualifications for that.

As in all our four EVS projects the EVS volunteers work along side our current staff teams and local volunteers to enable the young people to access all the opportunities open to them and to ensure they reach their full potential. On arrival the volunteers are fully inducted into their projects and also put onto the association main Induction which is held in the Central Office for all new staff and volunteers.

They then receive regular supervision sessions and are allocated a mentor so they have two points of contact whilst at the project. Wherever applicable all volunteers are also invited to attend our Central Training courses for areas such as ‘Managing conflict and agression’, ‘Basic First aid’, ‘Health and Safety’, ‘Diversity’ and ‘Professional Boundaries’.

Perfil: We would like volunteers who have an interest in working with young homeless people in the UK. We advertise the vacancies on www.youthnetworks.eu website and get many applications through this or the SOS for EVS Database website.

As the European Programmes Manager I short list those young people I think have a true interest in our field of work (not just wanting to come to UK/learn business English as their primary motivation) and I give this short list to the projects where we have a vacancy. The staff team at the project then meet to go through the applications and then they select the 3 candidates that they would like. I then approach the volunteers in order of preference from the project selection to see if they are still available for our projects and process from there.

In our EVS roles it is very important that the volunteer is matched as well as we can, a young person who is not interested in this difficult client group will find it a very difficult placement. Because of this we try our best at selection stage to invite people who have an idea about what they will be expected to do and the people we work with.

Skills wise we do not have any specific requirements apart from basic English langugage and feel that an enthusastic person who is interested in working with our young people does not need any prior training, though someone who has at least met this group before or done some sort of youth work will be better equipped when they arrive but we will not exclude those who haven’t.

Our EVS placements have been running for many years and we are continuallly training our staff and EVS on their roles and responsbilities so as to ensure a good experience for the volunteer but also to avoid job substitution. We welcome applications from volunteers with disabilities.

age: 18 until 30 years old

Tarefas: The role of the EVS volunteer is to support the young people at this hostel, by acting as advocates and role models encouraging them to engage in the training and life skills opportunities that are available. The EVS Volunteers are fully integrated into the small staff team and are expected to attend staff meetings and contribute where possible. They are also made to feel part of the organization as a whole and invited to any central events and included in the training provision.

The volunteers are expected to work at 35 hour week including any language training and Secondary placements. Possibilites include a range of activities from helping residents to shop for and cook a meal, engaging residents in training courses, accompanying a resident to a doctors’ appointment, running a language course in their own language, befriending new residents, helping someone to fill in a benefits form to helping a resident paint their bedroom. All the activities will be around promoting independence in a group who are currently dependent. Whilst with us we also encourage volunteers to find a Secondary Project as well as supporting them in developing their own project, thereby improving their organisational and development skills. This also gives the volunteer a greater opportunity to be part of the local community and also to develop new skills and help, and meet, more local people.

Therefore, volunteers will have the opportunity if for example they are particularly interested in cooking and wish to run a cookery course in the hostel, with the full support of the staff team and their mentor.

The wide variety of these tasks will enable the volunteer to develop their informal mentoring skills, active listening and giving of structured support to vulnerable people. We also ask our EVS volunteers to encourage the young people to feedback to our about our services and to lead a participatory culture.

The idea of involving EVS Volunteers is that it is felt that European Volunteers could add a new dimension to the training and development of the organization programmes, and also could offer a new element to delivery to disadvantaged young people. We feel that a volunteer could offer something to the young people that staff can not as an intermediary, more likely to be nearer in age.

Each volunteer has the possibility to negotiate with their mentor exactly what will be included in their weekly activities. The rest of the Volunteers time on the project, not spent interacting with residents, will be spent on structured project duties, similar to the rest of the staff team. This may include reception and administration tasks, group and individual work with the residents.

Formação: Learning opportunities:

This type of role is conducive to gaining an in-depth knowledge of social work in the United Kingdom, particularly working with a very difficult and challenging target group. Working alongside professional staff in this area produces the opportunity for volunteers to acquire this knowledge first hand though in a structured and supported learning environment.

• Basic social work skills – working with disadvantaged youth in the UK
• A deep knowledge and, hopefully, non-judgemental understanding of this specific client group.
• How to be an active member of a community – particularly the wider community when doing secondary placements.
• How to support someone who is very vulnerable.
• How to interact and integrate in a new culture
• How to develop their communication and listening skills, particularly in English
• Professional boundaries between vulnerable people and helpers
• Gain a basic understanding of Social Work in the UK
• Hopefully a wide range of skills that will help them in their future careers and with their employability.

Documentação: Cv + Carta de Motivação em Inglês