Voluantry work

[supportman]

Hello there, this is a first post for me. I am an agency support worker and I work with adults with learning disabilities. As an agency worker I work at a variety of homes and with clients who require various levels of support. I would also like to work with children and expand my knowledge and experiance but my agency does not have alot of work with children and I have only done one shift which was looking after an autistic lad and I really enjoyed it. I have been looking to do some voluantry work but have not had any success in finding any. I have found places that deal with adults but I already do that as a full time job. Does anyone know of an organisation in the Kent area which could help me with this or is there anyone in Kent who would like any help, especially as the summer holidays are coming up, who would like to contact me direct. Obviously I have a recent CRB check and I would be able to provide details of some well known care trusts in kent who would give references if anyone was interested.

Thanks for your time,
Supportman.

Hi, I am in Kent and I am sure many organisations/people would be crying out for support.

To name a few :

Portage services
Crossroads
Homestart
Surestart
I am familar with some "specialist" or local groups too- what area of Kent are you in?

I am in Ashford.
I have not heard of most of them except for homestart who said that they was not recruting for volunteers until the end of the year. I have found the number for crossroads in the yellow pages and I will give them a call.

Portage services are part of the Early Years Team I believe. Also try your local Child Development Centre- ours is all part of our local hospital, they may be able to put you in contact with other local groups.

I went to see the people at crossroads but they only have paid carers and they dont have any vacancies at the moment, but there may be something coming up soon so they gave me an application pack to complete. I still need to find some voulunteer work as I think it would be a good thing to have on my CV and I like the idea of using some of my free time to help people who need it, and would give me a great amount of pride in doing so. I remember seeing a programme on TV a while ago about a family with a child with CP and developmental delays (I think?) who required a high level of support. They applied for help and after a lot of fighting was initially offered 6 hours a YEAR, which I thought was disgusting and an insult. I think after years of more fighting the help was significantly increased. I have seen a few programmes like this and think by offering a day or two a week of my spare time I could make a real difference to the lives of a family in this situation.

supportman,
try your local toy library too or go to your local book library and ask for a list of the local voluntary organiosations in your area.
Voluntary organisations are always crying out for male carers because they are sooo low on the ground .
your local council or social services may be able to help with local groups too.
good luck it takes a special person to become a n unpaid volunteer.
WELL DONE!

Kent Autistic Society? I'm pretty sure there is such a thing as I know someone who used to work for them. It might actually be the local branch of the National Autistic Society but, if not, check for an NAS branch too. The NAS also runs Befriending which would be ideal for you. Also maybe look up local Special Schools and see if you can contact parents that way. Good luck, people like you are gold dust!

Thanks for the nice comments salsmum and davros, things like that are wage enough for me, oh and tea obviously, biscuits optional . Not heard of Kent autistic society, probably Kent autistic trust whom I work for regually. Good idea about contacting special schools and befreinding would be good idea also.

Salsmum I find that most of the places I work are female dominated and when I did my first aid course there was 15 of us, me and 14 ladies, but they was nice to me. There are two places inparticular though which have a high number of male staff, which is good for the clients to have a mix. Most of the time being a man is an advantage for getting work as we are a bit thin on the ground and the only thing has been not able to do wake night shifts if there are female clients who need personal care in the night.
Still do the odd sleep night though.

It probably is the same organisation then. I strongly urge you to look into Befriending via the NAS though, I'm sure there would be something on their website www.nas.org.uk
Otherwise, as I suggested, special schools would be a good place to check. I know some schools are very wary of passing info on to or from parents in case they are held responsible but you could try to contact parents via a PTA if possible.
You are right, men are quite rare in this field and, with a high number of children affected being boys, have an even greater role than just balancing the numbers.

Thanks for link Davros, there was an online application form for befreinding which I compleated. I know of a special school in Hythe so I will drop by next week and see if they would be willing to pass on my details for me. Perhaps I could make a mini CV with my experiance and skills on it, including that I have become nearly fluent in makaton and I only started learning it three months ago oh god I just remembered that the lady that usually runs the communication group on Monday at work has a meeting and I was nominated to cover it

Just an update.
I contacted someone at the school I mentioned and they said that they could not pass on any information as they could not risk being held liable. Still waiting for the NAS to contact me but I don't hold out much luck as everything I have tried so far has not been very sucessful.

Question: By what I have seen on TV there is a big problem with people getting the help that they need and I am trying to offer help and not getting anywhere. Is there a big problem as seen on TV, which I am sure I saw a program which said that there are 100,000 families in the UK that need more support or are they inflating the figures and most people find that they are managing ok ?