To support the wonderful work we do in providing families in crisis with a positive experience and creating lasting positive change, we need a team of dedicated volunteers.
Families tend to visit the farm at weekends, arriving Saturday morning and leaving Sunday morning, although we occasionally have families with pre-school children visit in the week and families visit during the week in the Summer Holidays. Families can visit from 4 – 16 times, at a frequency of between 6-8 weeks. We like families to work with the same group of volunteers, and therefore ask volunteers to commit to a one weekend in 6 or one weekend in 12. We also welcome ‘floating volunteers’ who can be available if another volunteer isn’t able to make it. Some volunteers are here for the whole 24 hours, some just for a day.
Volunteers never work alone and there is always a team of volunteers at Longmead to support the family. There is always an experienced, lead volunteer or the Family Programme manager, working alongside volunteers.
Volunteers support families to ‘muck in’ at the farm during their stay, facilitating cooking & cleaning as well as gardening and feeding the animals. Volunteers support families by role modelling, positive communication, sharing tasks, team working and positive behaviour management and having fun as well as facilitating positive activities; such as games, arts and crafts and going on walks. Volunteers do not tell families what to do, instead we hope to inspire families to make positive change by role modelling positive experiences.
Longmead works with the whole family and it is important to us, every member of that family has a voice, feels safe, is able to contribute and has a good time here at Longmead.
If you have some free time, are interested in working with children and their families, can get on well with lots of different people, then we would love to hear from you.
As part of volunteering with us, you will receive rewarding experiences, meals (over the meal times you are at Longmead), travel expenses associated with volunteering at Longmead, training opportunities and support from an experienced children and families’ worker. Such a diverse range of work goes on at Longmead, we welcome applications from all people, but here are some skills and experiences that may be especially useful to volunteering with us:
- A non-Judgemental approach and able to meet people where they are
- Previous experiences of spending time with children & families (this may be your own)
- Creativity
- An interest in animals, gardening, cooking or baking
- Strong communication skills
- Good team working skills
- A willingness to learn
- Listening skills
- Practical skills
- An interest in social work
- A boundaried approach
- The ability to relationship build with a diverse range of people
- The ability to have fun
- A sense of humour
- Passionate about facilitating families facing crisis to make positive lasting change
All successful applicants will be subject to reference checks and a DBS check as part of our safe recruitment policy. We accept volunteers over the age of 18, who have the right skills and motivations to join the Longmead Community Farm team.
Please phone Claire Crescent, Family Programme Manager 01258 837960 or 07598142989 to discuss if this role if right for you OR download the below volunteer application form and send to admin@longmead.org