volunteer

Personal specification

Essential requirements:

• Experience of working in a person-centred environment.
• Experience of using active listening skills.
• Awareness of own personal issues around death.
• Ability to manage sensitively and with compassion the needs of the client.
• Ability to maintain a professional approach at all times with both volunteers and clients.
• Confident of own judgement and initiative but able to seek guidance as appropriate from supervision and the service management team.
• Ability to be self-reflective, autonomous and to practice self-care
• To be responsible for maintaining and developing one’s own professional development.
• Awareness and commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion and the implications for supporting bereaved clients.
• Ability to maintain client and volunteer confidentiality.
• Be competent with basic IT systems.
• Commitment to the space2grieve service model and values – as explained on the website.
• To be available for a minimum of 2 hours at the same time each week with monthly addition of 2 hours for supervision.
• Commit to attending the full training programme and induction and additional CPD provided.

Desirable:

• Additional qualifications in counselling/health/social care professional training
• A resident of Richmond Borough
• Experience of working with bereavement
• Holder of a current and transferrable Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) certificate

If you want to make a difference to the lives of people in their grief, then we welcome your application.

The next training course will be held in April/May/June 2026.

Please register your interest to recruitment@space2grieve.org.uk.

The Course runs for 4 full days, following a Welcome Evening, over a period of 2 months.  This provides a sufficient period between sessions to consider and reflect upon the learning, with time to complete the accompanying worksheets.  Throughout the Course we will focus on the Awareness, Skills and Knowledge model of learning to equip you for the role of a Specialist Bereavement Supporter.

Awareness: An important focus of the training will be to tap into our awareness of ourselves and others: understanding what ‘makes us tick’ and how we build and nurture relationships. Time will be afforded during each session to reflect upon and share these.

We will also explore our own grief response.  What is your experience of loss and how did you cope? Were you able to help yourself? How?  What help was missing?  These important questions can give insight into the grieving process and inform our practice of supporting others on their grief journey.

It will be important for us to consider the place of culture, belief systems and diversity in supporting others, bringing into awareness how this may impact someone’s grief.

Skills: We will explore and enhance our listening and communication by practising a number of basic counselling skills to support clients, and use a range of case studies to exercise these skills within triads, offering feedback to each other.

Knowledge: Whilst this is not an academic course, we will draw heavily upon research into grief, utilising a number of grief models and theories to inform our practice.  We will consider the importance of boundaries and contracting with clients, as well as the role of the family and attachment theory.  We will think about how we can empower clients and explore the importance of supervision, taking time to consider what can complicate the grieving process and the importance of attending carefully to bringing the supportive relationship to a close.

Last but not least, there is you, our trainee Specialist Bereavement Supporter.  You will bring your life and loss experiences, personal and professional background, your understanding of relationships and how to navigate difficult circumstances. Together we will seek to create a safe and confidential environment in which we can share of ourselves to enhance our own and each other’s learning, whilst considering the importance of attending to our own self-care.

There is a Handbook to accompany the Course and a Workbook with tasks to be completed after each session.  Individual feedback will be provided following each submission, along with  a practical and written Trainer Assessment after the course is completed.