Multilingual Support Volunteer - CAMHS

Multilingual Support Volunteer - make a difference in a day during a half term and/or weekend

Date: 

Workshops will 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: TBC

Timings: Most likely 10am-1pm

Volunteers: up to 6 volunteers

Who will see the difference? Family members of children and young people receiving mental health support 

We have a new pilot project aiming to support the referral of young people into Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) with a focus on early intervention, particularly within BAME communities. Our goal is to raise awareness of mental health among young people while identifying barriers to accessing mental health support. We collaborate with children, young people, and their families in the community to empower them to discuss mental health openly and seek support when needed. As link workers, we engage with BAME communities, including Punjabi, Somali, and Arab populations, by delivering workshops and focus groups within the community. We work closely with parents, offering workshops to help them support both themselves and their children. Through these sessions, we’ve identified that some attendees need language support. To ensure that everyone benefits from our workshops, we provide assistance to parents for whom English is not the first language, enabling them to fully engage with the content in their first language. By offering this support, you will help make a meaningful difference for those who might otherwise feel excluded.  

The volunteering activity:

We will require support with;

•    Putting in a MS meeting beforehand so that we can go through anything you want to talk about/discuss with us 
•    Answering any questions that the participants may have 
•    Sitting with individuals who need support in the session
•    Finding ways in which we can support you after the workshop  

Key considerations:

Ability to translate from English to one or more of the following languages noted below.  We aim to create a welcoming environment where both parents and volunteers feel comfortable and supported. It's important to us that parents can express themselves in their native language and feel safe and heard. If you share this vision and would like to be part of this effort, please reach out.

These are the languages we need support with to translate:

Languages for translation

Somali

Hindi

Arabic

Polish

Punjabi

Gujarati

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.