At Acorns, our goal is to ensure everyone who contacts our hospices – calling on the phone or stepping through our doors – is met with a warm and friendly welcome. Our Reception and Admin Volunteers play a crucial role in helping us to do this. As the first point of contact, our volunteers are ambassadors for Acorns and help us set the scene for friendly and informative communications with our families, visitors, other volunteers and staff. Our volunteers greet visitors when they arrive, answer incoming phone calls and help our busy Admin team with admin support.
What you'll be doing
Volunteering alongside our Admin team, volunteers:
- Welcome visitors when they arrive at the hospice, standing to greet visitors and opening doors, and asking them to sign in and out of our Visitors Book
- Talk to visitors to find out the purpose of their visit, contact the appropriate team and chat to visitors while they wait to put them at ease
- Show people to conference rooms
- Answer phone calls and direct calls to the appropriate staff member
- Sign for deliveries and pass to the Admin team
- Assist the Admin team with photocopying, scanning, filing, emailing, computer data entry and other admin tasks
How much time will it take?
Reception and Admin Volunteers are asked to complete our online basic training modules, an in-person induction session, and relevant admin task training, which together take 3-4 hours to complete. Once trained, volunteering with us is flexible but we ask for a commitment of at least one morning or afternoon a fortnight.
Am I right for the role?
You must:
- Be sensitive to the needs of our children, young people and families
- Be confident and able to deal with difficult situations when families need a friendly face and someone to take control
- Be caring with a warm and friendly personality
- Be willing to learn about the importance of good customer service, confidentiality, boundaries and safeguarding within Acorns
Why volunteer at Acorns?
- Make a difference to the work we do and help to improve the lives of children with life limiting or life threatening conditions and their families
- Be a central and vital part of the day-to-day life of the hospice
- Connect with like-minded people and make new friends
- Travel expenses available
- Enhance your CV by learning new skills and gaining valuable experience
- We’ll give you a reference for future work or volunteering
- Invites to social events and participation in our volunteer recognition schemes and awards
- Access to our free online training to support and develop your volunteering
We are committed to safeguarding children and vulnerable adults and therefore any successful candidate will be subject to an enhanced DBS check for children (which we will pay for and process for you) and will be asked to provide two satisfactory references.
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