Compton Offices, Ground Floor, King Edward Street, Ashbourne, Derbyshire, DE6 1BW Tel: 01335 348600 Polly Yates: Readycall Macmillan Manager polly@vcspd.org Information Document for Readycall Macmillan Support Officer (Based at our Bakewell outreach office) Thank you for your interest in this post. Voluntary & Community Services Peaks & Dales (VCSPD) provides important services to clients who are often vulnerable, and this exposes our staff to issues and challenges that can be more difficult (and demand more flexibility) than you would encounter in many other jobs. Our jobs won t suit everyone, and we are really keen to help you decide whether you feel true empathy with the issues which are of concern to us and feel that you could work happily within our organisation so please do read the whole document carefully. The Selection Process We will not normally be able to invite everyone who applies for a job for an interview. We will therefore read each application carefully, and decide whether to invite the candidate for interview, based upon the information in the main section of their application form. We separate the Personal Details and Equal Opportunities Monitoring pages from the rest of the form: the information on these pages is not seen by those deciding on who to invite for interview. The Person Specification gives detail of what skills, experience and knowledge you need to have how well you match this specification will determine whether we invite you for interview. You need to be able to demonstrate that you meet all of the essential requirements: if you don t, please save your time (and ours) by not applying. But don t be put off if you meet only some of the desirable requirements. Our initial selection is based solely upon the information that you put on the form, so you need to make sure that you clearly demonstrate your match for each element of the specification by emphasising the relevant parts of your previous education, training, employment and elsewhere. If you have never been in paid employment or have not worked for a long time, think carefully about any experience, skills and knowledge that you may have gained, not necessarily in a formal work or education setting. This may include voluntary/community work, student placement, leisure activities or domestic obligations, for example, running a house or caring for relatives or friends. Interviews will be held on Tuesday 28 th April in Bakewell: if we are inviting you for interview, we will let you know no later than Friday 17 th April - so if you haven t heard from us by then, we are afraid that means that your application has not been successful. Charity No 1067193 Registered in England & Wales as a Company Limited by Guarantee No 2918492
Making an Application Please note that we will only consider applications submitted using our own application form. To make life easier for you and for us, our application form is a "fillable" Acrobat (pdf) file. This allows you to fill in the form, to save, re-open and edit it as you wish - and then to email it to us when you are ready. To fill in the form, you will first need to save the file to your computer. Then open it using Adobe Reader (beware: other PDF readers and browsers may display the form OK, but may not let you fill it in or save it). It s a good idea to fill in the first couple of boxes, then save the file and re-open it to check that the data is being stored properly. If you don t have Adobe reader, it is simple to download - and it s free. Please email your completed form file (as an attachment) to application@vcspd-jobs.org - to arrive by noon on Monday 13 th April. We will acknowledge all applications within one working day (and by 14.00 on the deadline day): if you haven t had an acknowledgment, please call us on 01335 348600 to help us work out what is going wrong. You can of course print off a copy for your own records if you wish, but please don t post us a printed form: we need applications as pdf files so that we can distribute them electronically between our offices. Thank you for your time in considering making an application to us. Polly Yates Readycall Macmillan Manager March 2015
Compton Offices, Ground Floor, King Edward Street, Ashbourne, Derbyshire, DE6 1BW Tel: 01335 348600 Polly Yates: Readycall Macmillan Manager polly@vcspd.org Background Information Voluntary & Community Services Peaks & Dales is a registered charity and a company limited by guarantee. We have offices in Ashbourne and Buxton, from where we provide a range of services that help vulnerable people in our community. Our support services include transport, befriending and practical help, a sitting and support service for children with a disability, home support services and care for older people and a Handyvan and Home Maintenance service. Many of our services are dependent on the support of volunteers - we have 28 part-time staff and around 200 volunteers. We provide our volunteers with good training and strong guidance to ensure that their time with us is a very positive and rewarding one. As a fully accredited Volunteer Centre, we also assist organisations across the Derbyshire Dales and Buxton area to recruit and support their volunteers, and we help people who want to volunteer, to find the right volunteering role for them. Our Readycall Scheme began in 2000, providing simple practical help and social contact to older, disabled and vulnerable people - to help them to continue to live safely and independently in their own home. In 2012, we entered into a three year partnership with Macmillan Cancer Support, to expand the service to include older people whose lives have been affected by cancer. Our volunteers provide a wide range of support that is tailored to the individual needs of the service user: they may help someone to do their shopping, provide transport to take them to a hospital appointment, accompany them on a walk or perhaps visit them in their own home for a chat over a cup of tea and a game of Scrabble. Referrals to the scheme come from Macmillan staff, GPs and other health professionals, Social Services, friends and family, as well as the individual themselves. We have now secured a further two year s funding to grow our Readycall Macmillan Service in the southern Derbyshire Dales and to launch the service in the northern Derbyshire Dales. We are recruiting three new staff to help with the expansion. The Readycall Macmillan Support Officer for the northern Dales will be based at our outreach office in Bakewell, which is hosted by Derbyshire Dales CVS at the Agricultural Business Centre. You will work as part of our Readycall Macmillan team, providing support to ensure that the new service is launched and developed smoothly and efficiently in the northern Derbyshire Dales, and that we attract and support new service users and volunteers. You will also liaise with colleagues based at our Ashbourne office. A detailed description of the role can be found in the Job Description, which is included in this pack. Please note that the service does not provide clinical support; therefore the post does not require the holder to have a medical background. The Readycall Macmillan Support Officer post is funded by Macmillan Cancer Support. Charity No 1067193 Registered in England & Wales as a Company Limited by Guarantee No 2918492
VOLUNTARY & COMMUNITY SERVICES PEAKS & DALES Job Description: Readycall Macmillan Support Officer This Description issued on: 1 st March 2015 Duration Contracted Hours Probationary Period Based at Area Covered Initial 2 year contract, extension subject to funding 12 hours/week: hours by arrangement 3 months VCSPD outreach office in Bakewell, hosted within Derbyshire Dales CVS, Agricultural Business Centre DE45 1AH Northern Derbyshire Dales Reporting to Readycall Macmillan Coordinator (Northern Dales) Purpose To maintain and support the Readycall Macmillan service. Duties & Responsibilities 1. Provide general administrative support. 2. Respond to day to day phone, email and office enquiries relating to the service. 3. Ensure records of income are kept in accordance with auditing requirements. 4. Ensure all donation income is banked promptly. 5. Process volunteer expenses claims for payment. 6. Assist in the recruitment, training and support of the work of the Readycall Macmillan volunteers. 7. Process service user referrals for assistance from Readycall Macmillan, and from other agencies. 8. Monitor and review the ongoing support provided to Readycall Macmillan service users.
9. Monitor and review the ongoing experience for Readycall Macmillan volunteers. 10. Assist with volunteer training and support activities. 11. Assist with promotional activities to attract new service users, volunteers and funders. 12. Collate and maintain statistics and computer data relating to service users and volunteers. 13. Assist with progress reports and service evaluations for funding agencies, statutory bodies and the Management Board. 14. Assist with written and verbal reports to the Management Board and Steering Group. 15. Comply with VCSPD s policies and other statutory requirements. 16. Work alongside volunteers in the office. 17. Provide emergency cover for other VCSPD staff and carry out any other duties as may be required from time to time.
Person Specification Readycall Macmillan Support Officer 1. Essential Qualities 1.1 A team player with good interpersonal skills. 1.2 Computer literate. 1.3 Ability to deal with members of the public. 1.4 Able to work on own initiative and handle conflicting work pressures. 1.5 Good listening, written and oral communication skills. 1.6 Pleasant and helpful manner. 1.7 Must respect confidentiality of client information. 2. Desirable Qualities 2.1 An understanding and empathy with rural issues. 2.2 An understanding and empathy with a diverse client group. 2.3 Experience of the computer software used by VCSPD: i) Windows 8 preferable, but experience of 7 is enough ii) Microsoft Word, Excel, Access and Publisher. We are prepared to provide training if required for a candidate who has a good level of computer skills, but not in these particular packages. 2.4 An awareness of the statutory requirements relevant to the services provided by VCSPD. 3. Flexibility 3.1 This is a small office and therefore we require all our staff to be flexible in what they are willing to do. 3.2 We are as flexible as we can be over the timing of each staff member s hours, within the constraints imposed by the services that we provide. 4. Disclosure and Barring Service Certificate 4.1 The direct services operated by VCSPD work with elderly, disabled and vulnerable people. From time to time, we are also requested to support families with children. We therefore require all staff to obtain a certificate of enhanced disclosure issued by the Disclosure and Barring Service. 4.2 If your application to this post is successful, and you do not currently hold a certificate, VCSPD can assist you in obtaining one. However we cannot confirm your appointment until a disclosure certificate has been issued.