Volunteer Samaritans mentor for listening volunteers

What will you be doing?

We are looking for experienced mentors/coaches who are able to work with our new listening volunteers one-on-one. All Samaritans mentors will also need to go through our extensive training to develop their understanding of our listening service, how we support our callers, and our key policies and practices. Mentors will work closely with other volunteers and the Bradford Service Director. Mentors at Samaritans ensure that our volunteers are supported to put their training into practice, responding to our callers competently and confidently, within agreed Samaritan’s policies and practices. Mentoring ensures all volunteers are providing a consistently safe, effective, and positive experience for people who contact us for emotional support. New volunteers at Samaritans complete a minimum of 6 shifts with a mentor.  The mentor offers support and guidance as the new volunteers respond to our callers for the first time and assess their practice against a set of required competencies.  Once the new listening volunteer has experienced a wide range of contacts and can demonstrate competency in all our key areas, they progress to probationer status and can complete shifts without their mentor. Established volunteers are also listened into periodically by our mentors to ensure that their practice is continuing to meet the required standards. Mentors may also like to also become a listening volunteer themselves, either now or in the future.

What are we looking for?

We are looking for mentors/coaches who have a keen interest in Samaritans and the work we do to ensure fewer people die by suicide. To effectively deliver this role, you will also need:

Empathy Active listening skills Communication skills Relationship building Ability to provide constructive feedback Willingness to work within the Samaritans policies and practices

In common with our listening volunteers you will need to be:

Accepting of our caller's rights to make their own decisions Non-judgemental Resilient - some of the things we hear may make you feel deeply uncomfortable Discrete - everything we hear is confidential

We welcome volunteers who reflect all the diversity and cultural richness of Bradford.  We are a disability friendly branch and we are passionate about supporting and enabling volunteering by everyone that shares our values. Together, we create an inclusive and enriching volunteering experience so that we can best support our callers.  

What difference will you make?

Our vision is that fewer people die by suicide. By mentoring our new listening volunteers, you will help us increase capacity to answer the millions of calls for help we receive each year via our unique 24-hour listening service.  We hope that you will find it a humbling, rewarding and enjoyable role that benefits you personally and professionally.