Background

At Simon Community Scotland our vision is for everyone to feel safe in the place they’re at in their lives. We have a relational focus and recognise the importance of building and maintaining trusting relationships with the people we support: where each person feels listened to, and where their experiences, feelings, and ideas are valued.

We See You Edinburgh is a new harm reduction service for people who are experiencing homelessness and using substances. The service specifically focuses on building community and fostering connection. We work with people without judgement or requiring that people stop using drugs as a precondition of support. It's not be a ‘recovery’ service or an ‘abstinence-based service’. Instead, We See You prioritises creating a place where people can come to connect with others, feel safe and listened to, and explore meaning in their lives. We aim to achieve this by doing activities that nurture relationships and connections and by promoting reciprocity so people have a chance to ‘give’ as well as ‘get’ support.

Role Purpose

We See You Volunteers can be involved with several of our ongoing projects which run throughout the week. We are looking for help with our group sessions on Friday evenings 4.30pm-6.30pm and Saturdays 11am-4pm.

Volunteers will interact with people attending the groups, ensuring people we support feel welcome and safe in our spaces and during activities. Working with staff and people coming to the sessions, your role will help break down the barriers between ‘us’ and ‘them’, in a non-transactional space that sees the people we support as individuals, without judgement.

We welcome all volunteers to bring their unique interests and skill sets. The role is also designed to work in-partnership with the people attending the sessions to help people we support share their skills with the community.
 

Specific Tasks

● Support us to deliver the group work element of this project.

● Assist staff to facilitate the co-designing and co-producing of group work with people who access the We See You service.

● Help us to deliver holistic group work elements, such as nature connection, workshops, place-based.

● Deliver low threshold harm reduction. (Support that makes minimal demands on the person)

Skills and Qualities Required

Successful We See You Volunteers will:

● Have the ability to work with people in a way that takes into consideration their individual and cultural beliefs without expressing personal opinion

● Be able to approach your volunteering role and tasks with a flexible and non judgemental attitude

● Be empathetic towards people we support

● Have good communication and people skills

● Enjoy meeting and interacting with people from diverse backgrounds

● Commitment to high levels of harm reduction based support – experience of dealing in this practice would be beneficial

● Have resilience and tolerance with people who have faced multiple exclusions

● Be very welcome to bring their own skills and talents into the space and be willing to share them!

Commitment

We welcome volunteers to stay with us and continue to help us make a difference in people’s lives. 12 months would be the ideal minimum but we respect your time and commitments elsewhere.

For this role, we ask for a minimum of four hours a week.

Our recruitment follows the Safer Recruitment process, which means giving consideration to safeguarding arrangements at every step. We will ask you to attend an informal interview, provide us with two references and attend our Mini IMPACT training – a shortened version of our dynamic 5-day staff programme.

Support and Training

● A full and comprehensive induction is provided for this role

● In-role training is available – we value our volunteers and want to ensure you are equipped with the skills you need to fulfil your role

● Volunteer mentoring on each shift

● Simon Community Scotland together with Volunteer Scotland and Disclosure Scotland will support you with the required PVG process
 

What’s in it for me?

For as little as four hours a week you have the chance to meet new people and be part of an amazing team who are passionate about what they do. Everything we do is about and for people: the people we support, our staff, our partners and everyone affected by homelessness. Each person involved brings their individual skills and creativity to the work we do. This is a chance for you to make a real difference to the most vulnerable people within your community and pick up essential skills that are valuable to employers.

Our hopes

We would like people who care about people we support and who are enthusiastic and able to respond flexibly to a role that can sometimes be challenging, but brings great rewards and satisfaction.

We would require you to be fully committed to Simon Community Scotland’s Mission and Core Values and adhere to our policies/procedures and Code of Practice.

If you need any help completing this form please contact us: volunteering@simonscotland.