About Sussex Nightstop: At Sussex Nightstop our aim is to reach people who are at risk of homelessness before they have to sleep rough and are therefore made vulnerable to all of the risks associated with street homelessness. To do this, we train volunteer Hosts to safely offer emergency accommodation in their homes to those people referred to and assessed as suitable by Sussex Nightstop. Whilst clients are accessing the service our partner agencies work with the client around their wellbeing and long term housing plan.

Role title: Nightstop Community Champion

Responsible to and supported by: Nightstop Comms & Engagement team

Hours and Commitment: Flexible hours, 4-6 hours per month

Purpose of the Role: As a small, community-orientated charity, with our funding focused on service delivery, we need help from sociable people to raise our profile throughout Brighton & Hove’s (and surrounding areas) many communities. Residents are ideally placed to connect with local public places, groups, events and businesses, both on and offline.

Our community champions help us to create and maintain a presence in each community.

We are ideally seeking a minimum commitment of one year to the Community Champion role to allow for training, settling in and continuity.  Hours are flexible and controlled by the volunteer.

Location: Your home and community.

Key Tasks: Community champions identify local opportunities to promote Sussex Nightstop’s work, especially our need for volunteer hosts and community fundraising. We find that everyone we speak to is more than willing to help. They love the practical and unique nature of what we do and they are keen to be part of a community that keeps young people safe.

The things that our Community Champions get involved with then are:

• Have a chat with people who run local services, public places, groups and cafes, to explain what Sussex Nightstop does and ask them to display our posters, or postcards
• Keep up contact and revisit these places as needed to top up postcards and supply new postcards.
• Share Nightstop’s social media content via local social groups (we use facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn)
• Tell us about any local events you know about that are appropriate for Sussex Nightstop to attend
• Give talks to any local groups/residents on Sussex Nightstop, helping to spread the word
• Help us out at our Sussex Nightstop-organised events and/or those organised by other groups; designed to spread the word, engage new volunteers and/or community fundraise
• Share regular updates with the Comms & Engagement team (by agreed method), feeding back on activities and successes that month and any upcoming opportunities.
• To participate in training and support activities related to this volunteer role as well as those that help us build a strong Community Champion team!

Benefits: Volunteers tell us they get huge satisfaction from the positive impact their generosity has on young lives. Other benefits include:

• Involvement in a vital community project that helps to prevent homelessness in our city.

• Access to our training program including our comprehensive core host training, other training we coordinate e.g. LGBTQ+ awareness, neurodivergence, supporting young migrants and other learning opportunities you might need for your role
• The opportunity to meet a kind, compassionate and diverse range of people and through this to broaden your life perspective through an increased understanding and knowledge of the issues facing vulnerable people
• The chance to connect with others in the Sussex Nightstop community though our social events and volunteer support spaces
• The opportunity to develop your volunteering role to other areas of Sussex Nightstop, such as supporting community events, or joining our on-call support team

Skills and Personal Attributes Required: This is a very flexible role that’s ideal for someone who likes meeting and chatting with new people.

• Good communication skills – a ‘people person’.
• Can-do, enthusiastic and flexible approach
• A good self-organiser who is happy (with guidance) to do things under own initiative
• Ability to understand our procedures and policies and volunteer within them
• A commitment to the values and principles of diversity, equality and inclusion and ability to volunteer within Sussex Nightstop’s policies in this area
• Ability to log and report activity as guided by Nightstop document templates

Recruitment requirements: Recruitment to this role is subject to the satisfactory completion of:

• Associated recruitment paperwork – application form and equalities monitoring form
• A face-to-face interview with a member of the Nightstop team
• Two satisfactory references
• Basic level DBS
• Attendance at Nightstop induction (one hour session at Nightstop’s offices) which includes
  • Introduction to Sussex Nightstop and homelessness
  • Service offer and volunteer roles
  • Working with our communities

Support and Training: We place great emphasis on supporting our volunteers and ensuring that safety and wellbeing is paramount. Support to this role includes:

• Thorough induction and follow up call by Comms and Engagement staff member
• Regular (approx. 4 yearly) Community Champion peer meetings face2face
• 6 monthly supervision meeting with Community and Engagement staff member
• Ongoing access to the Comms and staff team on a bespoke basis as needed
• Access to wider training supplied by Nightstop
• Out-of-pocket expenses (as agreed with Nightstop Coordinator)

Out-of-pocket volunteer expenses are covered as agreed with Nightstop Coordinator.

 

Enquiries and applications to: Mitchelle Dsouza at [email protected]