Communications Volunteer Role

About Home-Start London
Home-Start London is a network of local Home-Starts delivering volunteer-led family support across 29 London boroughs. Collectively, our members reach 6,500 families, including 9,500 children, every year.

Home-Start believes that every family should have the support they need to give their children the best start in life. We know that the early years make the biggest impact and that is why trained Home-Start volunteers are there ready to support families through their toughest times. The issues many of our families’ face include poor mental health, postnatal depression, bereavement and financial or housing worries. The pandemic and cost-of-living crisis continues to impact vulnerable families the hardest and the need for timely Home-Start support has never been greater.

At Home-Start London our mission is to connect, strengthen and champion local Home-Starts across the capital so that together we can support more families facing difficult times.  We do this by raising the profile of Home-Start in London, building meaningful partnerships, and securing crucial funding to help support and develop essential life-changing services.  You can read more about our work here.

The role
This is a rewarding and varied volunteer role which requires strong written and verbal communication skills, curiosity, and an eye for a great story! We are looking for someone who can help us capture and share stories from across our network. This will typically involve you doing short interviews (over the phone/online) with volunteers/staff and writing these up into blogs and other social media pieces. You will also help develop and maintain our online presence to help raise our profile and deepen understanding of the work we do amongst key stakeholders and potential funders.

Example tasks:

• Arrange interviews with staff and volunteers, writing up into stories that showcase Home-Start’s work and our fantastic volunteer network across London
• Help to maintain our social media plan by creating and scheduling content, e.g. designing social media graphics and/or writing copy for social media posts and blogs.
• Assisting the Communications Lead as required to help deliver special projects such as our upcoming Volunteer Recruitment campaign

Skills required

• Effective communication skills, both written and verbal
• Ability to bring great stories to life
• Social media literate
• Ability to work well independently as well as a part of a team
• An interest in Home-Start’s work supporting families
• Experience of using Microsoft Word 

Experience required
If you have previous social media or copywriting experience that’s helpful but we are happy to provide full training and on-going support to candidates keen to learn.

What are the benefits of being a Home-Start London Volunteer?

• Develop your skills, increase your confidence and gain experience
• A reference can be given after six months
• Be part of a small, friendly and ambitious team

What is the time commitment?
We ask volunteers to commit 4 hours per week for a minimum six-month period. This a flexible role, based at home. It can be term-time only if preferred.