Exciting opportunities are opening up for volunteers who would like to use their skills and experience to support vulnerable children and their families. The new volunteer roles will be part of an innovative re-design of children’s social care support.
The County Council has been awarded almost £4 million from the Department for Education’s Innovation Fund for this reform. Hampshire’s bid for the funding included innovative new practices which have the potential to establish new standards of good practice for other local authorities to follow.
These focus on the creation of the new specialist family intervention teams, making more use of voluntary support to connect with communities and improving the support to social workers so they have increased time to spend with vulnerable children and young people.
The type of people we are looking for are those who can mentor young people, provide support to excluded children or children in care, or can help support parents with parenting skills.
There are a range of volunteering opportunities available, and volunteers can give as little as an hour or two per week, or more if interested, providing on-going family support.
We will be setting up networks of volunteers to work with children and families in their communities. Training will be provided to volunteers.