Call for volunteers - Rare Opportunity to Learn about Community Development by Volunteering

The Trust for Developing Communities is recruiting to our Volunteer Learning Development Unit - a rare opportunity for local people who wish to commit to a career-enhancing opportunity to expand their experience and skills in working with local communities.

The Trust for Developing Communities (TDC) delivers community development in Brighton and Hove and Peacehaven.  We seek to empower people and local groups by encouraging them to initiate activities that are needed in their local community.  Our aim is to benefit communities who are economically or socially disadvantaged.  We do this by developing capacity, skills and training so that residents can identify, and help meet, their needs and participate more fully in society.

We are looking for people who already have some experience, either of volunteering, of being a member of a local community group or past work in local communities, who wish to take that step up into future employment or better understanding of how communities develop. We will have 8 voluntary positions available and we are seeking the right people NOW!

The Trust will not treat you as ‘any old volunteer'!  Our Volunteer Learning Development Unit will repay your commitment by giving you the exceptional opportunity to volunteer closely alongside one of our experienced development workers in a local community in a planned and supported programme. You will be offered; full and detailed induction, regular mentoring sessions to explore your learning, access to various relevant training courses; full involvement in Trust internal ‘practice development sessions' and advice to help you understand and consider your future job possibilities - also, successfully completing one of our placement opportunities will provide you with a ‘reference' from The Trust for Developing Communities, the city's commissioned Community Development provider!

So, what's to stop you? - well, we want people prepared to commit to at least 6 months and hopefully longer, so that you can really learn and absorb the skills needed for long term development work, and so that you can move from ‘shadowing' and generally helping, to taking on your own development projects.....and we are looking for a commitment of up to 2 or 3 days week.

Remember though.........volunteering with the Trust could seriously affect your chances of future employment!

Contact Jo Hill or Katharine Trevelyan at the Trust (01273 262220 or e-mail info@trustdevcom.org.uk) to discuss whether you could fill one of these positions.

General Information

Volunteering is at the heart of the Trust's body of work - we are an organisation that supports people who volunteer in many different ways - and we try to ensure that their voluntary experience is a good and meaningful one. Often this will involve workers offering one-to-one support or arranging and organising training courses for groups of volunteers.

• would you like to hear about the community groups in your area that you could join?
• would you like to talk to one of our development workers about how you might be involved in improving where you live?
• did you know that you can have an active role in your community and in city wide committees to influence policy that affect your immediate community and neighbours?
• would you like to learn more about community development work by volunteering alongside a trained worker?
• would you consider undertaking a vigorous course of professional training in community development work?

If you are interested in any of the above, read on. The Trust works with volunteers in four main ways:

1.  Supporting local community members to become a part of, or form new, community groups in local neighbourhoods.  We describe these hardy and inspiring people as 'community activists' and our development workers primarily spend most of their time supporting these wonderful people and their groups. We do not consider that these people are volunteers of the Trust - they volunteer for their own, self managed and independent community groups.

2.  Volunteers with the TDC are people who wish to work alongside our staff and learn skills, possibly to enhance their own future employment prospects. Volunteers can work alongside staff in a variety of roles, including - Administration and Office Management Staff, Community Development Workers, Community Workers with Young People and Community Participation Workers with Older People. This requires a significant time commitment from the volunteer in order to make the arrangement beneficial to both partners. Please contact us if you feel this sort of opportunity may be what you want.

3.  Accredited training of volunteers and workers who wish to gain skills and experience in development work is delivered through the Trust's WICO (Working in Communities) training course (see training)and is specifically designed for people who wish to pursue a career working in communities.  See 'Training' page if you think this might interest you.

For further information on the TDC volunteer policy and our way of working, please visit our Policies page. If you are interested in volunteering with us, please get in touch. We hope to work with you.

The Trust is also a Strategy Member of the Brighton and Hove Volunteering Strategy.

You can also become a Member or Trustee of the Trust for Developing Communities

If you are interested in supporting our work by becoming a member or trustee, please read the following documents and get in touch at info@trustdevcom.org.uk