Job description

At Teenage Helpline, we are a tight-knit community of people who are passionate about make a difference in the lives of young people across the UK 💙

Teenage Helpline is an online peer-to-peer mentoring service for young people. We can act as the first stepping-stone for young people who do not feel comfortable seeking support for themselves, or who need a listening ear to help them cope with personal issues.

All of our volunteers and employees are remote workers. We have great systems in place to allow our employees and volunteers to get to know each other, work effectively together and do great work!

We are a flexible organisation that values the contributions of everyone. We will never ask more from our volunteers and employees than they can give, but we are sure to celebrate and recognise their efforts.

About the role

As a Peer Mentor, you are the face of Teenage Helpline, engaging directly with all young people who need support. You have a responsibility for providing adequate support, signposting young people to more comprehensive support when required and escalating complex cases.

Responsibilities

Make yourself available for a minimum of 1 – 2 Mentor shifts per week to pick up new cases when they enter the helpline within the SLA timeframe.
Maintain communication with mentees who would like ongoing mentoring support, ensuring that you communicate your availability expectations with them upfront, and handing over any cases when not available.
Manage workload effectively, ensuring that you maintain regular contact with your Team Leader to keep them updated with your existing case load.
Maintain compliance with all confidentiality agreements.
Maintain effective records of all cases within Teenage Helpline systems as stipulated by internal processes and procedures.
Escalate cases as required to the relevant teams, including:
- Escalating all cases with any safeguarding concerns to the Safeguarding Team for resolution.
- Escalating any complex cases to your Team Leader to ensure that they are managed appropriately.
Engage with staff counselling and wellbeing services and programmes after dealing with complex or triggering cases.
Engaging with additional ad-hoc tasks and projects as stipulated by Operations Management when caseloads are low.

Skills

Ability to convey information using good written and verbal communication (includes active listening and interpersonal skills).
Active listening & responding effectively & check on understanding.
Time management skills.
Relationship building and Networking skills.
Emotional and social understanding/intelligence and/or demonstrable empathetic approach to others
Emotional resilience and ability to work in a challenging environment.
Being able to understand and be sensitive to variety of issues and take a non-judgmental approach in mentoring our service users.
Adaptable style to different mentees.
Ability to record detailed notes regarding your activities.
Good skills in IT and proficient use of Microsoft applications.

Our mission is to make Teenage Helpline the best charity in the UK. To build inclusive processes, we need to build an inclusive team. Please know that this list is indicative and that we would still love to hear from you even if you feel you only are a 75% match. Skills can be learned, but diversity cannot. We promote a diverse and inclusive culture at TeenageHelpline.

The Process

Our hiring process typically has three stages