Oakleaf is a local mental health charity who support people who suffer with their mental health on getting back into work through a variety of vocational training courses and social inclusion activities. Involvement with our activities would prove great experience for anyone looking to get into a range of professions/career paths including social care, mental health and teaching.

We are ideally looking for volunteers who could run literacy sessions with our clients either on a 1to1 basis or in a group session. This would include teaching basic literacy skills such as reading and writing and working with vulnerable adults of all abilities. 

In addition, we are looking for volunteers who could teach languages, such as Spanish, to our clients. This would be for beginners and would cover the basics. Ideally this would also be for a group but we would look into doing it as 1to1 if the volunteer felt more comfortable. Again it would be working with vulnerable adults with a range of abilities.  

For both the literacy and languages we can be really flexible on times within our working hours of Mon-Fri 8:30am-4:45pm (4:30pm on a Friday). As the activities would include working unsupervised with vulnerable adults we would need to get a DBS check for the volunteers who run our activities.

Would you like to make a real difference in transforming someone's life? 

Welcome Buddies is a new project supporting people with mental ill health to take part in activities within the community. 

We are currently recruiting volunteers across Guildford and Waverley who:

• Enjoy meeting and chatting to people in the community
• Are available 2-3 hours each week (flexible)
• Can work in a non-judgemental and supportive manner

Volunteer Buddies will be given full training and be supported by a coordinator. Reasonable agreed expenses will be paid.

Once trained volunteer buddies will help people to:

• build up confidence and motivation
• Search for meaningful activities
• Attend interviews and activities if required
• Mot importantly, you will be a listening ear and a friendly person to share a coffee with