Age UK Community Champion -Essex

The role in a nutshell:

Age UK Community Champions share with their community information about Age UK and the services we offer. They promote Age UK guides and factsheets, represent Age UK at talks, meetings and presentations organised by community groups in their local area, as well as identifying and gathering signposts from local services and sharing these with us to provide a greater understanding of organisations and services available within Essex.

What will you be doing?

As an Age UK Community Champion, you would talk about Age UK and our services whenever you get the opportunity through your normal day to day life so that friends and people you come in to contact with are aware of our work. You would also help us to identify spaces in your local community that older people congregate, this could be GP surgeries, day centres, reading groups, places of worship, community centres etc and let them know about what we do. You would also ask them if they would like to order and stock our free information guides and leaflets to provide or display for older people. You would keep in touch with these hubs to make sure they keep their stocks up to date. You will also attend talks and presentations representing Age UK. Additionally, you would identify and gather signposts from local services you already know or find new groups and services that help older people and let us know by completing a form. We may also sometimes give you information about services we find in your area and ask you to contact them and get more information about what they do.

How would you be supported in this role?

You will be supported by the Essex Advice service manager who will be available to answer any questions or queries which you may have. There will be meetings with the service manager and any other service volunteers on a regular basis. You will also receive mileage expenses to reimburse you for any travel you undertake while delivering your volunteer role. We will send you a package of a selection of guides to use and information on how community groups can order more stock from us for free.

Why do we need volunteers in this role?

Age UK offers a variety of free support services for older people. However, even though they may have heard of Age UK, many do not know what we do and that we might be able to help them and therefore do not benefit from our support. Community Champion Volunteers would reach out to older people within their community in Essex and champion our work by either telling people about what we do and/or leaving our guides and leaflets in spaces where older people congregate for them to view and take. We now also offer a support service called Age UK Advice in Essex, and to give people the best information we can, we need to know about what local services are available to older people. This might be lunch clubs, dance groups, book clubs, transport services, day centres, foot care, among others. Community Champion Volunteers would find out about these services and let us know what they are. This might be done by actively finding services and telling us what they do, or by contacting a list of places provided by Age UK to make sure we always have up to date information.

Additional information:

This volunteer role can be flexible to meet your needs and you could determine how much time to dedicate to your role. A minimum of 1-2 hours per week would be expected. If you would like to attend talks and presentations on behalf of Age UK these will be arranged with you as and when invitations arise. This volunteer role is not office based and pro-actively engages our services across the whole of Essex.

What skills, interests or experience might be helpful in this role?

A good knowledge of your local area would be advantageous but most importantly, you would be willing and able to identify community locations that might be frequented by older people that may benefit from receiving the guides, and to deliver the guides and Essex Advice leaflets to these hubs. You would have good people skills and feel comfortable talking with individuals and groups. Prior experience of research or a keen interest would also be advantageous. It would be preferable if you have some knowledge of IT so that you can fill in a form online about the services you find and send it back to us.

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