Volunteering

Volunteering presents a fantastic opportunity to gain new skills and experiences and to enhance your CV and employment prospects whilst meeting new people from a diverse range of backgrounds.

People choose to volunteer for a huge number of reasons, but whatever your motivation, interest, experience or availability, we are certain that there will be a volunteer role for you with the Octavia Foundation that you will find to be rewarding, challenging and enjoyable.

All of our volunteers receive full training and an induction relevant to their role. We reimburse agreed travel and lunch expenses and organise social events for our volunteers throughout the year.

If you are interested in volunteering, please complete and return the volunteer application form or contact the Volunteer Coordinator for further information.  All of our volunteer positions are subject to satisfactory references and some will require you to complete a CRB check.  At present, we are only able to accept volunteers that are over the age of 18.

Current volunteering opportunities 

 

 

Volunteer befrienders

 

Our befriending scheme supports isolated or vulnerable Westminster residents. We match volunteer befrienders to spend an hour a week with the resident and we ask for a commitment of six months.

We need our volunteer befrienders to be empathetic, reliable, supportive and to be a good listener.  Befriending can involve a range of different activities. Some residents may choose to simply maintain routines, others may want to go for a walk, visit a place of interest or just have a chat.

This project is funded by the Octavia Foundation, Octavia Housing, City of Westminster and NHS Westminster.  For more information about this project, please click here.

Shops volunteers

We have 20 charity shops throughout London and volunteers play an important role in all of our charity shops and make a significant contribution towards their success.

We are always looking for enthusiastic and reliable volunteers who can commit to volunteering in our shops for a minimum of four hours per week for at least three months.

The role is varied and can include sorting stock, operating tills and handling cash, working on the shop floor and dealing with customers.  For more information about volunteering in our shops, please click here.

Volunteer youth workers

We are currently looking for volunteer youth workers to support activities at BASE, our fantastic youth club in Pimlico.

We need fun, dynamic and enthusiastic people to commit to volunteering one evening a month to work with our group of young people aged 16-21.

No experience in youth work is necessary and all training is provided.

Volunteering in care

Octavia Housing provide a range of care services to tenants and local residents in need of a little more support.  These include two day centres, sheltered accommodation, extra care units and a specialised supported dementia care home.

We are always pleased to hear from people with a background in care who are keen to volunteer in a care environment.  Volunteers in our care services typically support our care team in all aspects of their role. 

Volunteer in our offices

We are often able to support volunteer placements in the offices of Octavia Foundation and Octavia Housing. Over 200 members of staff work across 16 departments at our head office and volunteering in this environment allows real opoprtunity for development and work experience in a particular function or sector.

If you are interested in volunteering within the housing or charity sector and have an interest in devloping skills in HR, finance, development, communications, facilities, customer care or any of our other departments, please contact Wray Bennett for further information.   

We also have a range of Employment and Training volunteering positions. For further information contact Wray Bennett.