Volunteering

“I genuinely feel privileged to have had an opportunity to be a part of Compass Be and everything that comes along with that, including amazing support from fantastic staff that are welcoming, caring and also very approachable, to being made to feel like one of the team from the get-go.

“Communication between me and my supervisor has been excellent. Among other staff members, it feels very natural and fluid while at the same time being very meaningful and responsive and making me feel valued, always keeping me up to date regarding clients, what extra support or even what job opportunities may be available to me. Making me feel part of the Compass Be family. 

“I feel that I have gained and continue to gain some amazing and invaluable experience while being a part of Compass Be, having the opportunity to work with young people has really helped me realise more about myself as a person and the direction that I may want to take my career in counselling going forward. 

“I would also like to share with you that my supervisor is inspirational and to have had her as my supervisor and go-to person has enhanced my experience at Compass Be.”

It’s an opportunity to “give back” and make a difference.

You know your skills and life experience will have supported the mental health and wellbeing of the most important and often the most vulnerable people in our society – the children and young people.

You’ll gain skills and experience yourself which can help in your own wellbeing – and in your CV!

To increase our impact within local communities and create new opportunities with the people who live where we work.

To offer new experience for our volunteers and enrich the life experience of the paid staff our volunteers work with.

• Extend local networks so Compass is representative of its communities.
• Engage with school-aged children, young people, young adults, parents / carers, families, and sub communities.
• Inclusive of people with protected characteristics including socio economic disadvantage and lived experiences across different spectrum of needs.

• Build capacity and skills within local communities to support people to achieve their goals.

• Develop people’s skills to increase education, training, and employment opportunities through volunteering.

• Develop mutually beneficial partnerships.

The charter follows our Compass values

Integrity

• We will communicate openly and honestly with volunteers at each step of their journey – from accurate role profiles, regular and transparent communications, and ensuring people have access to information about their role and volunteering.
• We recognise the significant contribution people who volunteer make to their local community. We will work with them to continuously develop and improve our volunteering programme.

Valuing each individual

• We will aim to recruit people with different characteristics, backgrounds and lived experiences and remove practical barriers wherever possible to starting or continuing volunteering.

• We will identify the goals of volunteers and support people who volunteer to achieve them. Where appropriate, we will give them the training and mentoring so they can benefit from the organisation as well as their role

• We will recruit people who reflect the area in which they are volunteering – we will engage with people in communities underrepresented in Compass to identify barriers to volunteering within these communities, and work together with them to overcome them.

Solution focused

• We will work with service managers, staff delivering services at the front line and potentially service users to identify where Compass’s work can be enriched by volunteering – we will then have processes in place to ascertain whether volunteers would be an appropriate way of trying to support with these.

• We will be open to exploring novel opportunities where these align with the Compass mission.

Consistent and reliable

• We will ensure that volunteer roles support, and do not risk the safety and effectiveness of Compass services.