Career Talk Volunteer

Career Talk Volunteer - make a difference in a day by inspiring the future of your peers during a half term and/or weekend!

Date: 

Workshops with children and young people take place during the half term or weekends. The dates for these workshops will be confirmed in the new year  as workshop dates are decided closer to the time. We have provisional dates where the workshops will fall into. These dates are:

Monday 17th-Friday 21st of February 2025
Monday 7 April - Monday 21 April 2025
Monday 26 May - Friday 30 May 2025

Volunteers can be made aware of ad hoc sessions from now until August 2025

Location: Within community centres; Ealing, Greenford and Northolt (West London)

Address: Current places we are delivering workshops include: 

- Viking community centre, UB5 6HW
- The circle café, South Ealing, W5 4QA
- 13th (Southall) Sikh Scouts Allenby Rd, UB1 2HL

Timings: Most likely 10am-1pm

Volunteers: up to 3 volunteers

Who will see the difference? Children and young people with mental health support needs attending our workshops and young volunteers participating and growing their confidence through presenting and talking about their career journey. 

Our Children and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) Link Worker pathway team are conducting a pilot project from June 2024-August 2025. The aim of this project is to raise awareness on mental health and CAMHS, and aiming to understand the barriers to seeking mental health support. We work with children, young people and their families within the community to empower them to discuss mental health and seek support if needed. Through our focus groups so far, we have learnt that young people feel inspired by stories of others from similar backgrounds. The children and young people we currently work with are interested in hearing what other young people have gone on to do post-secondary school, college or sixth form as this can inspire and encourage them to aim high. We have found a need in young people wanting to hear about career development and how people from their background have overcome hurdles in their lives. Therefore, we encourage applications from the Somali, South Asian, Arab communities.

The volunteering activity:

We will require support with;

• Hearing your career development story
• Putting in a MS meeting beforehand so that we can go through anything you want to talk about/discuss with us
• Creating the volunteers' section of the PowerPoint presentation for your career development story presentation
• Answering any questions that the young people may have
• Understanding ways in which we can support you after the workshop 

Key considerations:

We would like to recruit volunteers with lived experience of mental health. The volunteers can share as much or as little as they feel comfortable with during the workshops. We encourage them to share their stories as it can support with others seeing the progress they have made and using their stories as inspiration. We encourage a supportive debrief at the end and support with any distress that may be triggered through presenting about your experience. 

We would particularly encourage applications from volunteers:

•    With a BAME background, Black African/Caribbean/Black British, South Asian, Arab, Other
•    With lived experience of mental health and have sought support e.g. counselling, therapy, CAMHS etc.
•    Willing to talk about their career development after secondary school/sixth form/college 
•    Ideally approximately 16-25 years’ old for relatability to the young people as peers

This is a one off volunteering role where you can make a difference in as little as half a day or multiple half day shifts.

Exact dates and locations of shifts to be decided in the New Year. 

Next steps:

Please complete our application form via our website outlining your skills and qualities for the activity and sign up to the activity via your volunteering profile (opportunities tab) to confirm your attendance