Family Mentor (Southend-on-Sea)

Supporting families with children at risk of neglect or harm in Southend.

For volunteers aged 18+ in Southend-on-Sea or surrounding areas

Family Mentors supports families who have social care involvement and reduces the number of children at risk of going into care by preventing and de-escalating issues.

Volunteer to help families who are struggling to turn things around. You will provide guidance and mentor families to enable a parent to provide good parenting to their children and families with the goal of achieving better outcomes and opportunities for the children.

You will act as a trusted mentors, providing consistent emotional and practical support to families in their homes every week for six months.

Find out more below and register your interest. 

Two people indoors sitting at a table

Volunteers Supporting Families in Southend has been running since 2009 and is supported by Southend Borough Council.

Volunteers Supporting Families recruits, trains and matches volunteers to mentor and support families with children at risk of neglect or harm. This could be that the child/children is/are on child protection, or that there are complex needs in the family such as; alcohol or substance misuse, mental or emotional ill health or domestic violence.

Our project staff match volunteers with a family, and through them support is given via weekly visits to the family, offering advice, or just listening to their problems. Our volunteers help keep families together; reducing the number of children on child protection/Child in Need plans. This is done simply by helping the parents to improve their parenting skills, reducing isolation by being a friendly face and overall improving the quality of family life. All of this helps reduce pressures and reliance on social care services.

Simple put, the volunteers who are part of the Volunteers Supporting Families project must have an interest in helping people – both parents and children. Full training is provided, so it’s not necessary to have previous experience working with families. Often, our volunteers find that their own life experience helps them offer support to families.

  • Aged over 18 years old
  • Able and willing to commit to visiting the family once every week, for a minimum of 6 months
  • Willing to provide references and complete a DBS (criminal record) check, paid for by Volunteering Matters
  • Be dedicated and strong, not be disappointed if there are no big changes straight away.
  • Be caring and friendly, and most importantly, be a good listener
  • Have an interest in helping people, both parents and children

As well as gaining experience working with families, volunteers have the chance to undertake further training depending on their interests and the needs of the family they support.

  • Full training and support from VSF project staff throughout your time volunteering

  • Future references

  • Reasonable out of pocket expenses, including travel costs

Family Mentors is an effective programme, proven to reduce the number of children at risk of going into care. By preventing and de-escalating issues, our volunteers help struggling families to turn things around.

Find out more

Project funded by Southend-on-Sea City Council

The Southend on Sea City Council logo featuring the name and a blue wave

Register your interest

Thank you for your interest in volunteering with us. Please note, we cannot currently support visas or volunteers from outside of the UK at this time across our projects.
You are about to register for this opportunity. Volunteering Matters will only use the information you've given us here for your volunteering record. It will be treated as confidential and stored in line with data protection legislation. I confirm that by registering my interest, I agree to the Volunteering Matters terms and conditions.

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