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KEEN London
KEEN London is a small but growing charity. Our vision is that every child has the chance to enjoy games and leisure activities and none are left behind due to disability.
Description

KEEN London is a small but growing charity. Our vision is that every child has the chance to enjoy games and leisure activities and none are left behind due to disability.

We provide free games and activity sessions with tailored support for children with additional needs and disabilities. We support over 100 children, known as our ‘athletes’, with a wide range of additional needs, including autism, cerebral palsy, learning disabilities, and global development delay. At KEEN London, we strive to use fun and games to improve young people's wellbeing, and personal, social and emotional development as well as broadening experiences to increase skills and confidence.

Duties

During a typical KEEN London session, you’ll provide one-to-one support to an athlete, helping them to access all the activities on offer, achieve their personal development goals, and of course have tons of fun! You can expect to get involved with a wide range of playground games, ball games, nature walks, and creative activities. From time to time we also run trips for our athletes, and previous trips have included trampoline parks, high ropes courses, pedalo boating and slime-making classes.

Our Volunteer Coaches are the backbone of a KEEN London session! If you’re available between 10:00 and 14:30 on Saturdays please come and join us.

What we expect from our Volunteers:

  • We don’t expect any prior experience for this role - just lots of energy, enthusiasm and a willingness to learn!
  • A commitment to attending 2 sessions per month, for at least 6 months. This is to ensure a level of consistency for our athletes and so that you can gain the experience needed to support our athletes effectively.
  • Completion of our application process. After submitting your application, we’ll invite you to attend a training session and complete a DBS check. 
  • Help our athletes access the activities and games at our sessions. You’ll support our athletes to engage with the session, and have fun while they’re doing it.
  • Support athletes to achieve their goals. You’ll help our Service Coordinators develop goals for our athletes, track their progress, and give them lots of encouragement along the way.
  • Work as a team to develop creative ways of engaging with the athletes. You’ll work together to come up with new games, develop resources, and plan activities.
  • Get moving. We want our athletes to enjoy being active, making friends, and trying new things - and we want you to join in with them!
  • Have fun! Our athletes love working with energetic and enthusiastic people, and we’ll ensure that all your hard work will be rewarded with a great time.

What you’ll get in return

  • You’ll make a difference to the lives of our athletes, see their progress and have fun along the way!
  • Regular volunteer social events, and opportunities to meet other coaches
  • Ongoing training! We’ll ensure you feel comfortable in your role and are fully trained.
  • Development of skills such as working with children, teamwork and communication
  • Long-term volunteers receive t-shirts, badges, and advance sign-ups to our popular events
  • Reimbursement of reasonable travel expenses.
  • References after a reasonable time of volunteering
  • Access to free Charity Worker Discounts after 5 completed sessions.

If you’re interesting in joining us, please contact us on [email protected] or apply here: https://www.keenlondon.org/volunteer-with-keen-london/

Our mission is to welcome everyone and create inclusive teams. We celebrate differences and encourage everyone to join us, and be themselves.

 

Who will the volunteers be working with?
You will be working directly with our beneficiaries, who are children aged 5-12 with a wide range of disabilities including Autism, Learning Disability, Down's Syndrome, Cerebral Palsy and Global Development Delay.
Training
We invite all our volunteers to attend an induction. The induction will introduce you to what we do at KEEN London and how our sessions run. During the induction, we also provide safeguarding training.

After your induction, you'll be invited to your first session, where you'll be paired up with an experienced volunteer. This is a chance to learn from them and ask any questions you may have about supporting our athletes. Our Service Coordinators are always on hand during sessions to make sure you know what you're doing.

Time commitment

A commitment to attending 2 sessions per month, for at least 6 months. This is to ensure a level of consistency for our athletes and so that you can gain the experience needed to support our athletes effectively.

Completion of our application process. After submitting your application, we’ll invite you to attend a training session and complete a DBS check.
Application deadline

This organisation is one of our community partner organisations.

Like all volunteer recruiters we work with, they have signed up to our service standards, agreeing to abide by our policy on partnership working to keep you safe and supported whilst you volunteer.

You’ll never be out of pocket for volunteering through us – with in-London travel expenses to and from your volunteering guaranteed.

In addition, the team here at Students’ Union UCL Volunteering Service is here to support you throughout your volunteering journey – you can get in touch with us at any time.