• Take responsibility to cover our Monday to Friday support services (helpline) between 10am and midday.
• Help us to extend these hours.
• Monitor email support and forums throughout the day.
• Design a volunteer recruitment and training strategy from scratch.
• Recruit, train and support volunteers, including creating shift patterns and allocating volunteers to shifts.
• Attending to support queries from active volunteers.
• Providing ongoing training and feedback to volunteers.
• Being the first point of contact for our volunteers to provide ongoing training and feedback to volunteers.

Your role will be two-fold.

1. As our new Helpline Administrator, you will take responsibility to provide support and advice to service-users that contact the charity helpline through email or telephone helpline which is currently open five days a week between the hours of 10am and midday. We are looking for the successful candidate to review the possibility to extend these hours slightly in the short term. You will create a longer-term strategy to open the helpline longer hours, including evening hours using new volunteer involvement. As the role develops you will train and supervise volunteers to take over helpline service provision, and your role will be more supporting and advising a small team of helpline volunteers who will be handling calls. Your role will then involve also occasionally providing helpline cover during volunteer shortage.

2. The Volunteer Coordinator aspect of the role is equally crucial, and you will be starting with a blank canvas to develop and implement a volunteer recruitment strategy that will deliver an extensive pool of diverse and engaged volunteers ensuring their skills and enthusiasm contribute to our service. The successful applicant will be solely responsible for all aspects of the day-to-day management of helpline volunteers. You will be leading on recruitment, training and support of volunteers. You will also be working to continually develop the strategy to ensure the volunteer led helpline supports OCD-UK’s aims, objectives and values of ensuring every single person that contacts the charity is given helpful and practical recovery focussed advice that also offers hope.

You will be joining a small team of five staff and will therefore be expected to help and support other colleagues with their roles, when required to do so.  Equally, they will support you in your role.

The position will suit an individual who is flexible with their working hours, who is prepared to work occasional evening and weekend hours when required and has some experience in the creation and delivery of training materials.

Working on our helpline is a very rewarding job and it’s important not to underestimate the positive impact of the advice on people who turn to OCD-UK for support.

The ideal candidate would need to have strong and effective communication skills and have the ability to respond to service users with patience in a non-judgmental and sensitive manner.

This role can also be emotionally challenging, and although you will be supported by other team members, it’s important that you consider if you have the coping skills and resilience to respond to such emotionally charged, and triggering calls before applying for this position.

Because we are a charity dedicated to serving those affected by Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder you will need a very good understanding of the condition and the evidence-based treatments, although training will be offered.  Strong consideration is given to those with lived experience of OCD, which could include those who have experience in supporting a loved one with OCD.