Mentor (Volunteer) Remote
Job description
About Teenage Helpline
Teenage Helpline is an online mentoring service run by young people to be used by young people. The aims of Teenage Helpline are to provide the first stepping-stone for young people who may need to get professional support, but do not feel comfortable seeking this support for themselves. Not only this, but we also provide mentoring for young people who do not need professional support, but who need a little extra attention and support to help them cope with other personal issues.
About the role:
This is an exciting opportunity for an individual to join our charity front line and contribute to our aim of supporting youth to fulfill their best potential. You will be the first point of contact for young people seeking our help. In this exciting role, you will be able to mentor a young person and motivate them to reach their best potential by offering impartial advice and help on the topics the young person wants to discuss from their mental health state to seeking career advice.
We are looking for a collaborative individual who is organised and can see the bigger picture of the impact they will have on our charity. The role is voluntary, therefore, experience is not necessary and is suitable for students or recent graduates from various courses, looking to develop their skills whilst working from home.
Key responsibilities:
Report directly to the team leader.
- Responsible for providing high quality and helpful responses in accordance with guidelines and policies
- Responsible for meeting SLA’s
- Engage with mentees to agree how mentoring could support their objectives and needs
- Agree a programme of mentoring activity that meets the specific needs of the service users ( mentees)
- Respond to queries coming in over email.
- Use your training and information cards to form personalised responses to emails or escalate them as per internal procedures
- Manage your own workload effectively
- Support mentees in personal reflection and learning development
- Support mentees to review their progress, set realistic and practical options to realise goals
- Encourage mentees to express and discuss their ideas, concerns and understanding of their respective situations
- Encourage our service users (mentees) to take responsibility for their own decisions, plans and actions
- Refer mentees to other sources of information, advice or further support when necessary
- Keep up to date and accurate records of contact
- Compliance with Teenage Helpline’s code of ethics/conduct to be represented
- Compliance with confidentiality and data protection rules & How to follow them
- Understanding of the circumstances where the mentoring relationships would end and implement accordingly
Skills:
- Ability to convey information using good written and verbal communication (includes active listening and interpersonal skills).
- Active listening & responding effectively & check on understanding
- Organisational skills to manage your own workload.
- Time management skills
- Relationship building and Networking skills
- Build and maintain rapport for sustainable periods of time
- Emotional and social understanding/intelligence
- Emotional resilience and ability to work in a challenging environment
- Being able to understand and be sensitive to variety of issues and take a non-judgmental approach in mentoring our service users.
- Focus on Personal reflection and development
- Adaptation of your respective mentoring style to empathise with different mentees
- Flexible work ethic approach
- Ability to create a productive mentoring environment through effective communication methods
- Ability to record detailed notes regarding your activities.
- Risk management (personal and business capacity)
- Good skills in IT and proficient use of Microsoft applications.
As this is a peer role we are looking for candidates that are aged between 16-25
Practical Considerations
All of those who volunteer for this position will need to have access to a computer, the internet and e-mail and have a comfortable space to work from home.
Reporting to: Team Leader
Working hours: This is a voluntary opportunity. Working hours are flexible. We ask that candidates are able to give approximately 2 hours per week.
