Can you spare a few hours as a SENDIASS Volunteer?
You will be helping to support disabled children, young people and their families. This is a great opportunity to develop your skills in a rewarding role, and gain a strong sense of achievement. We will provide training and ongoing supervision to ensure you are fully supported throughout your time with Kids.
Sefton SENDIASS provides free, confidential and impartial legally-based information, advice and support relating to education, health and social care for families of children and young people aged 0-25 with SEND who live in Sefton.
Our aim is to empower families and young people to understand their rights and to be confident when making informed decisions and advocating for their child with SEND.
About the Role
SENDIASS Volunteer
Duties may include all or some of the following, depending on your interests and skillset:
General administrative support:
- Updating our database using our internal systems
- Sending out general IAS emails to support the service delivery
- Maintaining the safe and secure filing of personal data at all times
- Monitoring and recording contacts with the service (phone calls, voicemails, emails, Facebook queries)
Telephone Advice Line:
- Working with confidential information
- Capturing key information during the initial calls
- Providing information, advice and support as required
Face-to-face consultations:
- Supporting parents and young people to understand, interpret and/or complete relevant SEND paperwork
Focused support:
- Supporting parents and young people to understand and exercise their rights around a particular issue; and/or express their views and take part in discussions, for example, in a meeting with school, at Education, Health and Care Plan annual review meetings
Training and publicity:
- Supporting at our training sessions for parents and/ or professionals
- Attending events such as school SEND coffee mornings to publicise the service and offer information, advice and support to attendees
Skills:
Please note these are desirable but not essential
- Experience of working with/supporting families of disabled children and young people
- Being a confident communicator and having great interpersonal skills
- Being a confident IT user, with the ability to navigate bespoke database systems; MS Outlook; MS Excel and MS Word
- Having confidence and enthusiasm to offer help and information to service users
- Having the ability to travel independently to and from meetings and events
Location: Sefton. Flexibility between office, home, and other locations across Sefton
