Workshop Assistant

*THIS IS A VOLUNTEER ROLE*

**Please only apply if you are available to volunteer in Southwark every Thursday 09:30-12:30**

About the Role

We are looking for a sunny, dedicated person to support our regular Thursday morning Writing For Wellbeing group at the Southwark Wellbeing Hub. This is a hybrid group which can include up to 8 people attending in person and up to 5 people attending online. The Workshop Assistant will support the Workshop Facilitator to manage the room, ensuring everyone has the support they need and that the online participants feel included in the group.

The role will include the following:

- Helping to set up the tea and coffee station before the workshop, making drinks for participants during the workshop, and helping to break down the station at the end of the workshop

- Managing the Zoom room (letting in participants, responding to people in the chat, sending writing prompts to each participant in the chat, sharing the screen for visual prompts)

- Offering support to participants that need additional guidance or confidence building, if the Workshop Facilitator is already helping someone else

The workshops are very lively and a lot of fun. We encourage discussion, self-expression and lots of laughter. As the Workshop Assistant you will be able to join in with the group and the activities each week so you can unlock your own creativity too.

There is no experience necessary to join our team, but you will need to be confident using basic technology and ready to support and encourange a range of people with varying needs and abilities.

**When you apply, please include a short note on why you would like to volunteer in this role**

About Us

In a Wordsmiths' Writing For Wellbeing Workshop, attendees are guided through structured writing activities and games to enable them to create and share a mixture of fictional and true stories based on their own experiences. All exercises are designed to guide the attendees to focus on memories associated with positive emotions but the prompts are always subjective enough that no-one will struggle to think of what to write about. The group setting allows each person to firstly build confidence by sharing work that they have created from nothing, and secondly to build empathy towards other people in their community by hearing their stories in their words.

Wordsmiths' workshops are designed to be inclusive of all abilities and experiences - the goal for each attendee isn't to create a perfectly worded masterpiece, the goal is to enable a creative way to communicate and to understand their own thoughts and emotions.