Volunteer with us

There is much to gain from registering a volunteer:

• Invaluable firsthand experience of working in mental health settings. 
• The knowledge, skills, and insights of working with experts, both staff and service users.
• A reference for future volunteering / study / employment if you volunteer with us for six months or more.
• Access to many comprehensive and validated training packages (e-learning and face to face).
• Provision of a Trust IT account (including a Trust email address) for the duration of your placement, and access to the content of our intranet page including vacancies listings.
• The reimbursement of travel expenses in accordance with our Volunteer Placement Policy.
• Volunteering is the first step in a pathway to join our Bank system for paid employment.
• You will be playing an active role in busting stigma and challenging superseded views of mental ill health.
• By volunteering with us, you will support our treasured National Health Service.

Our ambition is to build a volunteering workforce that reflects and celebrates the many different skills, backgrounds, and interests of the people we serve. While we aim to make volunteering available for young people in the future, for now you must be 18ys old or over to volunteer with us. Ideally, we would like you to live in one of the five boroughs we serve (Wandsworth, Sutton, Merton, Kingston, Richmond).

·       We especially welcome applicants with lived experience of mental ill health, or of caring for someone with a mental health condition.

·     If you are currently supported by a SWLSTG’s community service, you are welcome to apply for any volunteering vacancy of interest to you. If you are still an inpatient, please do apply once you have been discharged from hospital.

·       Unfortunately, we are unable to support either study or work placements.

To volunteer with the Trust you will need to stay for 10 consecutive months or longer, depending on how quickly you can complete registration and mandatory training.

In particular:

• 3 months (approximately) is the time required to fully recruit you.
• Once recruited, you will need 1 month (or longer if you are unable to dedicate roughly 2 hours a week to training) to complete the e-learning and face to face mandatory training, before placement.
• Once you complete registration and training, we ask you to actively volunteer for at least 3 hours per week, over a minimum of 6 months.

We know from experience that actively volunteering for at least six months will enable you to learn new skills, increase confidence, and accrue valuable first-hand experience, and will also maximise the benefits to people accessing our services.

Some volunteering opportunities may require a longer time commitment, please ensure you check the required volunteering hours specified in individual role descriptions.

No, we will pay back travel expenses based on actual receipts and you can claim up to the pay as you go cap (Transport for London's cap price) on daily anytime fares for Zones 1-6.

We will also offer a discounted lunch if you volunteer for more than six hours consecutively and over the lunch period.

To register as a volunteer with us you will need to:

• Complete a standard Disclosure and Barring Service check (we pay for this). 
• Complete an Occupational Health assessment.
• Provide references for the last three years.

To ensure you are equipped with the necessary knowledge and skills to keep you, your colleagues, and the people you will be supporting safe, before starting a volunteering placement volunteers complete a range of relevant and certified training, both e-learning and face to face.