Healthy Communities Peer Mentoring

Brighter Living will be running our next Healthy Communities Peer Mentoring course in a couple of weeks’ time.

The course enables community members, staff, service users and volunteers to engage with those people looking for low level support in areas such as weight management, smoking cessation, drugs, alcohol, mental health, breast feeding, sexual health and men's health.

This will be by referring into services such as the Healthy Sefton service 0300 100 1000.

This is a great opportunity to offer staff personal development and will benefit your service users. The course is provided free of charge.

We will be running the course on 18th, 19th and 25th January. These are full day sessions and lunch and limited crèche spaces will be available.

The course offers participants a level 2 BTEC

Brief outline of course

Unit 1: Understanding Volunteering: This Unit will develop the Learners understanding of what volunteering is and the different types of volunteering people do within the UK. They will learn how and why people volunteer and the impact of volunteering both now and in the future on local communities within the UK.

Unit 2: Mentoring and Befriending when Volunteering: This Unit will develop the Learners understanding of what mentoring and befriending is. They will learn how and why people mentor and befriend and the skills needed to undertake the role. They will learn the importance of the role of a mentor and befriender and the differences between those roles.

Unit 3: Social Inclusion and Understanding the Extra Support Needs of Volunteers: This Unit will develop the Learners understanding the wide range of disabilities affecting people and what extra support needs they have when volunteering as well as the benefits of volunteering for people with extra support needs. Learners will understand the terms 'extra support needs', 'social inclusion' and 'diversity' and how these influence volunteering good practice.

Along with the informal classroom training, there will be talks from health promotion specialists in the areas of health mentioned above. These are fun and interactive and are backed up with support from the Development Worker. Participants will be expected to engage with a small caseload of clients and refer into specialist services.

This is a very popular course so please reply as soon as possible. I have attached the volunteer registration form to be returned.

Kind regards

Ian Mitchell

Development Worker

Brighter Living Partnership

Top Floor, Shakespeare Centre

Shakespeare Street

Southport

PR8 5AB

tel    01704 501024 x 205

mob 07525 269822

fax   01704 531192

WWW.BRIGHTERLIVING.ORG.UK

Registered Charity No. 1101722