Lambeth, London
Free to Be Kids
Salary: £26,000

Hours: Fulltime: 37 hours per week spread over 5 days. Attendance on at least 10 residential projects a year.

Leave: 46 days per year, inclusive of bank holidays and pre-set reward days. (Yes, we know how generous this is! But we ask a lot in return – see note 2 in application pack)

Start Date: As soon as possible. We would like the successful candidate to be in the role by mid-March at the latest, jumping straight in by attending several of our residential projects this Spring, though an earlier start date would be very much welcomed! Contract Length: Fixed Term until March 2025, with likelihood of extension.

Reports to: Head of People

Who we are

Thank you for your interest in working for Free to Be Kids (colloquially known as Free to Be by our staff, children and volunteers). Our mission is to help some of the most disadvantaged children and young people in London and beyond to increase their sense of their own capacity, ultimately helping them to change their stories about who they are and who they can be.

Our main Thrive Outside programme takes particularly disadvantaged children on week-long countryside breaks, helping them to feel special, valued, brave and successful. For those most in need, we provide follow-on support through further small group residentials, one to one mentoring and our youth leadership programme. In 2022 we supported 229 young people who would otherwise have had no respite from very challenging home circumstances.

We founded Free to Be in late 2015 with a small team of key volunteers. From then, we ve grown into an established organisation with fantastic outcomes, with a paid core group of staff and an over 200 strong volunteer team.

Job Description:

The position is a dual role. You ll coordinate many aspects of volunteer recruitment, management and support aiming to grow our pool of committed volunteers and ensure their retention and return to future projects. You ll also help lead at least 10 of our residential projects across each year – working on the ground with the children, leading the volunteers, and helping make the projects special, safe, and transformative for vulnerable young people.

Key Responsibilities:

1. Volunteer Coordinator (approx. 60% of workload):

Our current volunteers come from a wide range of backgrounds, with large numbers of university students, young professionals and teachers and a growing group of semi-retired or retired people. This role will involve creating new relationships with potential volunteer recruitment sources, including universities, community volunteering hubs and employers, and ensuring high volunteer retention by supporting and developing our existing volunteers, making sure they feel valued, included and right at the heart of the Free to Be team.

Work alongside the Head of People to manage volunteer recruitment and support, thinking creatively and innovatively about how to engage new volunteers whilst also maintaining existing volunteer involvement.
Build new, and manage existing, relationships with potential volunteer recruitment sources, such as universities, employers and community volunteering hubs. Provide a vibrant and welcoming presence at recruitment fairs and networking events, to raise awareness and act as an ambassador for the charity, finding and inspiring people with the right skills and mindset to come and be part of our team.
Create and manage high quality communications and social media posts to raise awareness of our volunteering opportunities.
Provide friendly assistance and efficient support to all volunteers, existing and new, ensuring they complete all safer recruitment processes and training.
Work with the Head of People to match volunteers to projects.
Maintain accurate records for all volunteers using our administrative processes.
Alongside the Head of People, oversee training for all volunteers – both liaising with external providers and creating, organising and delivering our in-house training programmes.
Gather feedback and evaluation from existing volunteers to feed into our ongoing development.

2. Thrive Outside Project Coordination (approx. 40% of workload):

Our residential projects are immersive, exhausting in all the right ways, and full of opportunities for children to feel included, valued and successful. Children usually spend 5 days at a time with us – many will paddle in the sea for the first time, play hide and seek in the woods, build rafts, canoe across lakes, visit farms, forests, ruined castles and splash through streams. A small number of projects are camping based, but most run from a variety of residential centres that we hire for the purpose. The majority of these projects take place during the school holidays.

We want you to play a key part in at least 10 such projects a year. Initially spending time in the different project roles (working intensively with small groups of children; providing floating support to the project coordinators; perhaps overseeing catering or driving our minibuses.). Once you are familiar with the way projects work, we will support you to progress to lead and coordinate them, working alongside a member of our staff team or an experienced volunteer. This will involve managing teams of between 5 and 25 volunteers, to oversee the wellbeing of between 8 and 20 children and young people per project

Jointly with the other project coordinator, you will:

Take lead responsibility for the organisation, structure, and safe running of the project.
Provide leadership, support and direction to the project s volunteer team. Set the tone and ethos of the project, understand and model Free to Be s approach to supporting young people, and lead the team to create the best experience possible for the children.
Build excellent working relationships with Free to Be s children and young people, ensuring they feel welcomed and included and that their safety and support needs are fully met during the project.
Support the volunteer team to respond effectively and in a positive manner to children presenting behaviour,risk issues (including safeguarding issues), or other challenges which may arise.
Liaise with the parents/carers of Free to Be children, building positive and supportive relationships, understanding many may have been let down by statutory or other organisations in the past.
Work to ensure safety and quality standards on residentials are of the highest level by ensuring Free toBe s policies and processes, (including safeguarding, health and safety) are implemented at all times and issues are efficiently and constructively problem-solved, with the support of the leadership team.
Be the ultimate problem solver on the project – anything can happen, and frequently does!

As a small but fast-growing charity, we may also, from time to time, ask you to step in and support with other tasks in line with the development of the organisation.

Important Notes about this Position

Note 1: Leave consists of 25 days annual leave, 13 reward days which are pre- set by Free to Be (usually a fortnight in mid-late September and 3 days at Christmas) and the 8 bank holidays. Where bank holidays fall during a residential, alternative dates will be agreed in lieu.Due to Free to Be s core work falling in the school holidays, leave at these times of year is restricted.

Note 2: Weekend and late working is an ordinary part of Free to Be s residential projects. All staff attending a residential are given two rest days (in effect, days off) which are always taken immediately after return from a residential. We do not run a time off in lieu system in relation to residential and the significant extra hours worked during these times are rewarded via the 13 pre-set reward days in September and at Christmas each year.

Note 3: Attendance at 10 residential projects each year (totalling approximately 60 days and nights) is a requirement of the role. Some additional non-overnight travel may also be required. Car ownership is not required.

Safeguarding, Equality & Diversity and our Code of Conduct

As a charity working with vulnerable children, some of whom will at times display behavioural challenges and all of whom have experienced real hardship within their childhoods, we uphold the highest levels of safeguarding practice. We will support you to develop knowledge and skills in this area as it is a requirement of the role that you respondeffectively, safely, and robustly to safeguarding, confidentiality and data protection issues arising within your work with us.

We require all staff to work in accordance with Free to Be s Code of Conduct, values, ethos, and core principles and to build positive and respectful relationships with all other staff, volunteers, children, their families, and other organisations encountered as part of your work with Free to Be.

Person Specification

We re looking for someone a little bit different. We believe this is an exciting role with a rare combination of volunteer management in an ambitious and growing charity, and an opportunity to develop your skills in working with particularly vulnerable children. It would suit someone with a genuine drive to work in the charity sector, who has some experience already, but who is perhaps stepping into a Volunteer Coordinator role for the first time. They have likely held some level of responsibility previously in other organisations, potentially on a voluntary basis. Certainly, they will have a real passion for . click apply for full job details

Volunteering Coordinator Full Time

Job Overview