Volunteer Role Description
Volunteer Title: First Friends Volunteer Ballyogan
Description of Service: Volunteer with First Friends Programme based Samuel Beckett Civic
Campus, Ballyogan Road, Dublin 18
The Service runs every Thursday from 10am to 12pm but with set up and tidy up the time for
volunteering will be 9.00 – 1.00pm.
This service is being developed by Barnardos and is being started in September 2017 so that the
volunteer will get the opportunity to be part of the setting up of the group.
The aim of the group is to:
 Provide a safe welcoming environment for children and their parents to play together.
 To enhance the quality of attachments between children and their parents.
 To improve the participating parents understanding of child development issues using
the PEEP programme.
 To promote positive parenting skills.
 To link children and families in with other support services where appropriate.
Outline of Volunteers Tasks and Responsibilities:
A volunteer with an interest and experience with children and in particular in early year’s
development, play and positive parenting is required to assist with:
 Preparing a child centred environment.
 Welcoming parents and children to the service
 Interacting in a positive and friendly manner with both parents and children.
 Planning and supporting activities.
 Supporting parents to build friendships.
 Assisting in the preparation of refreshments for parents and children (light snacks).
 Helping set up/tidy up toys and equipment.
 Participating in the planning and reviewing of programmes.
 Assisting project staff to ensure a high standard of health and safety and good practice
 Feeding back and completing with staff, when required, incident forms if any issues
arise regarding child protection or health & safety.
 Facilitating staff to promote the parent child relationship of service users.
 Facilitating staff in encouraging parents to actively play with their children.
 Playing with the attending children in a child led manner.
Training and Support Plan:
 The service will provide induction, and hands on follow up training with volunteer as
required.
 Where possible the volunteer will attend training as provided centrally in Barnardos,
and where linkages are available locally to other training providers.
 Supervised by project staff as assigned.
Time Commitment:
As we try to ensure consistency of service to families and children attending the service we are
seeking a commitment of one session a week (Thursday from 9.00am to 1.00pm) from
September 2017 until the end of June 2018.
Person Specification:
 Friendly and polite.
 Confident (dealing with general queries – following training).
 Patience to deal with the various requests that can arise.
 Flexibility.
 Awareness of confidentiality in relation to service users.
 Understanding of child development.
 Have the capacity to work in a disadvantaged community.
 Ability to work as part of a team.
 Ability to respond in a positive and age appropriate way to children’s needs and
behaviour.
 Ability to show initiative.
 A willingness to learn and experience new ideas.
 A willingness to accept and comply with Barnardos ethos, policies and procedures.
 A willingness to share experience, expertise and a willingness to accept support.
 To have a sense of humour.
 Willingness to play with children at their level, to sing nursery songs, to read stories and
to engage in messy play (with paint, glitter etc).
Application Form, Garda Vetting & Reference Checks