Volunteer Family Services - HMP Featherstone

Working as a member of the Family Services team, across all areas of the service, you'll be offering information, guidance and support to families and loved ones of those in prison. The role will involve supporting one or more of the following family support services: a welcoming visitor centre facility; play and children's services, and refreshment services., As part of Pact's Family Services team you will support prisoners and their families to maintain strong, resilient and effective relationships where there is mutual and lasting benefit in doing so.

Mainly based in the prisons visitor's centre meeting and greeting visitors, you will provide practical and emotional support to families ensuring they are treated with dignity and respect and their voices are heard.

As well as supporting in the visitor's centre, you will also be required to support Pact's play and children's services, including our family days, as well as our refreshment service in the prison visits hall.

What you will be doing

• Offer a friendly and welcoming environment within the Family & Visitors' Centre, where people visiting the prison can spend time before and after their visit


• Assist with booking/checking in of visitors in line with Pact and the prison's procedures


• Encourage families to access support or signposting them for their needs by interacting with visitors, offering information and advice as appropriate on a confidential basis and ensuring first time visitors are provided with enhanced support and reassurance


• Help maintain an area in the visitors' centre for children, which may include displays of children's artwork, relevant posters and information, as well as toys and other materials to engage children before and after a visit


• Liaise with prison staff, including visits and security staff, to ensure close co-operation in the smooth and efficient reception of visitors at the prison


• Promote opportunities for children to engage with their loved one who is in prison in an appropriate way during a visit and family days


• Ensure the play equipment is safe, clean, and able to fulfil its requirements, storing and restocking as required


• Provide an excellent, friendly, and welcoming refreshment service to prisoners and their families in the visitors centre and/or visits hall


• Support the planning and delivery of an agreed number of family/teen days per year and to help Pact deliver high quality facilitated play/activities appropriate for the age ranges attending the family days


• Support the Family Services team with other ad-hoc tasks


• Adhere to policies and practices relevant to this role: Confidentiality; Health & Safety; Child Protection and Safeguarding; Equality and Diversity; and Prison security rules etc.


• Report any incidents and concerns related to Health and Safety or Safeguarding to a member of the Pact staff team


What happens next?

After you've filled in an application, we will invite you for an initial interview at the earliest convenient date for you and your prospective manager. This is an opportunity for us to find out a bit more about you and your motivations for volunteering and for you to find out more about Pact and the role you've applied for to make sure it's what you expected! Where possible, we will conduct these interviews on site and in person, so you can get a feeling of the working environment and the commute.

If successful at interview, you will be required to complete our background checks, which will include references, an enhanced DBS check and prison vetting. You will also be required to complete our mandatory online training (approx. 10-12 hours) before being able to start the role (please see the role profile for more information about the training).

Once all the checks and training have been completed, you will have a check-in meeting with your manager to check you have understood everything and give you a final chance to ask any questions before you start!

Pact was founded more than 125 years ago by volunteers. True to our roots, volunteers continue to play a key role in helping us provide our services in courts, prisons and communities across England and Wales.

We hope that you make the decision to come join us and help us get one step closer to a society that understands justice as a process of restoration and healing for all.

At Pact we believe in the unique dignity of every human being. We are an inclusive, welcoming organisation, with a diverse workforce of people who share our core values. We welcome applications from people from all sectors of our diverse communities and all backgrounds, including people who have been affected by imprisonment (appointment to post may be subject to a risk assessment).

Because of the recruitment process which can take several weeks, Pact hopes you will commit to volunteering for a minimum of 1 shift a week (approx. 3-4 hours) for at least 6 months from when you start.