The Grow Summer Sessions
Volunteer Coach Role Description

Programme details

Name – Grow Summer Sessions
Duration – 6 weeks
Timings – Each Wednesday 1-4pm
Start Date – Wednesday 17th July 2019
Purpose – Build confidence, promote wellbeing and develop employability in 16-24 year olds

Programme focus
Grow is a youth development charity that works with vulnerable young people. Many of the young people we work with face mental health difficulties that have resulted in social isolation and a lack of engagement in work or training prospects. We are seeking to run a summer volunteering programme in partnership with a community farm, aiming to build confidence, promote wellbeing and develop employability in these young people.

Programme contents
The 6-week Grow programme will be based at a community farm on the outskirts of Sheffield. We have been given the mandate to create a therapeutic garden walkway in a wooded area on the farm. The young people will be involved and take ownership at every stage of the project, from design to plant choice and the build of the garden.

The group will be divided into teams and each team will have a coach as leader. The coach’s remit will be to draw out the contributions and ideas of the young people in their team. Our aim is that the young people ‘own’ this programme and take a lead in designing the details of the look, feel and development of the garden. Whilst working, the coaches will also raise key conversation topics, designed to develop the young people’s soft skills such as team work, developing resilience and building motivation. Our hope is that by embedding this learning, we will increase engagement and create a context of learning and development.

The Role

• Being a part of the briefing and training before each session
• Leading a team of between 3-5 young people as they volunteer at Holly Hagg Farm
• Supporting and motivating the young people as they take part in practical tasks such as planting, digging and weeding.
• Encouraging positive conversations between your team and creating safe boundaries
• Inspiring a key topic each session that will encourage the development of soft skills (key topic will be introduced in the team briefing)
• Working alongside the Grow coaching team to promote a positive culture amongst the group as a whole
• Be responsible for following the safeguarding procedure and completing incident forms if any safeguarding concerns arise
• Maintain clear communication with Grow coaching team about the development of each member of year team.

Person Specification

• Clear communicator in both 1:1 and group settings
• Emotional resilience, particularly when faced with challenging behaviour
• The ability to demonstrate a non-judgemental approach, particularly when faced with young people’s accounts of their lives and experiences
• Some experience of gardening or horticulture (desirable)
• Some experience of working with either young people or vulnerable people
• Responsive to feedback in order to improve coaching skill

Essential requirements

• Every volunteer will need to have an up-to-date CRB Enhanced DBS Certificate (we will process this)
• Each volunteer must be available each Wednesday afternoon from 12-5pm. The programme starts on the 17th of July and the final sessions is the 21st of August.

Next steps

If you are interested in applying, please send your CV and a short cover letter to the following email address: steven.cotton@growuk.org.

We will be conducting informal interviews via the phone for selected candidates.

Closing date: 5th July 2019