Telephone 'Helpline' Volunteer

To provide a Helpliner, administration and reception service from our Whitmore Way offices to clients and counsellors.
Our Helpline is the first point of call for accessing our counselling service, a great team that operates with a mixture of paid and voluntary staff, with paid staff undertaking the unsocial hours.
This role supports clients by ‘providing a listening ear’, helping clients to either arrange access to our various counselling services, or to signpost clients to other services.
Key aspects of the role are answering phone calls and carrying out counselling administration (managing appointments, diary, safely welcoming clients in a secure environment). Helpline calls range from straight forward enquiries to serious mental health issues. In this respect, phone calls could be intense, challenging and long.
Attention to detail and accuracy is a must when handling private and confidential information, the position will be subject to completing a successful DBS check.

Main Duties and Responsibilities
• Be part of a team whose main purpose is to ensure that the Helpline is available between 10am – 4pm Monday – Friday and 10am -2pm on Saturdays
• Answering the Helpline telephone, providing a ‘listening ear’, to help callers look at options, signpost to other services or enlist callers in our various counselling services
• Manage appointments, diaries and room bookings
• Ensure all payments taken are logged appropriately to enable payment reconciliation.
• Offer visitors a warm welcome, ensure safeguarding and health and safety processes are followed, providing hospitality and liaise with the member of staff they are visiting
• Be a keyholder, responsible to open/close the Whitmore Way building
• Update the CRM and manual records ensuring accuracy & compliance with GDPR
• Keep up to date with best practice and contribute to continuous service improvement.
• Manage own time and workload effectively, to maintain own wellbeing.
• Present a positive image of Basildon Mind
• Work effectively within the team and as part of the whole organisation.

What skills do I need?

To be successful you will ideally have customer facing experience (phone or face-to-face) and ideally be trained or have experience of working in a support  based role e.g. the Samaritans or a customer contact centre. You need to be able to work independently and also work as part of a team.  Ideally you will have an understanding of mental health issues and the impact of social factors.  You should have good communication, oral, written, and interpersonal skills and the ability to communicate effectively with a wide range of people.

Interests

• Mental Health

Activities

• Administration and Office
• Supporting Charities
• Supporting People and Befriending