BOOST Outreach Worker
BOOST – Befriending and Outreach Older Peoples Support Service
Age UK Bucks currently delivers the largest Befriending service in the county, supporting older people by matching them with a volunteer, sometimes creating relationships that can last for years. The service helps alleviate feelings of isolation and loneliness, and can provide practical and emotional support. Since the pandemic, the service has never been more needed or more important, especially as it is largely carried out in older people’s own homes.
Working with the National Lottery Reaching Communities Fund, we have identified a specific need to meet some of this demand through the development of self-sustaining peer to peer and group befriending partnerships, which can carry on beyond an initial 6 months of volunteer support. We have called the project ‘BOOST’, boosting, as it will, our ability to reach more older people and bring communities together.
We are now recruiting a small team to work alongside our existing Befriending Plus team of four Area Facilitators, our Volunteer Coordinator and new and existing volunteers, to deliver this new project.
We are recruiting two roles initially:
- A Project Coordinator, who will oversee the project, ensuring that it meets its objectives to deliver sustainable support for older people, ensuring effective integration with existing services and appropriate reporting and monitoring. In addition to this you will carry out assessments of older people’s needs and goals and look at opportunities for peer-to-peer and/or group support.
- An Outreach Worker, who will work largely in the community and with our existing befriending service to identify peer to peer and social group opportunities, carry out client assessments, keep accurate records and ensure progress towards the clients individual goals and the project’s aims and objectives
Please see the job description below for further information on the Outreach Worker post. If you wish to apply, please complete the application form attached and email it to recruitment@ageukbucks.org.uk
Please note: Closing date for this role is Sunday 11th September 2022 and interviews will be help on an ongoing basis.