Volunteer Job Description

Summary

Facilitate a children’s group during the adult group sessions. Children range in age from infant to teen. Volunteers serve as a positive role model for the children as they teach safe touches, healthy boundaries, safe spaces and healthy coping mechanisms when dealing with anger.

How this opportunity benefits you:

You will be able to gain first-hand experience facilitating children’s groups on topics such as self-esteem, healthy relationships, bullying, domestic violence education, and communication. Volunteers will obtain an increased understanding of domestic violence and sexual assault and will expand his or her knowledge of diverse cultures and socio-economic backgrounds. Most importantly, volunteers will be a proactive agent in preventing domestic abuse and sexual assault in Freedom House’s service area.

Responsibilities

• Maintain confidentiality and respect among all children within the group
• Work with the children to resolve conflict and return to goals if a situation occurs
• Create and maintain a safe environment where children are treated with respect
• Demonstrate professionalism through reliability, punctuality, personal integrity and being respectful attitude when providing services

Time Commitment and Attendance:

We require a six-month commitment from our volunteers and interns. Freedom House values the time and talents that the volunteers provide to our clients and organization. We require that volunteers provide a 2-week advance notice if they will be unavailable to attend their shift. We are a client-based agency, in which we require all staff and volunteers to be on-time in order to best serve our clients.

Training Required:

Volunteers at Freedom House who are interested in working directly with our clients are required to complete the 63.5+ hour Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault training. During our training, you’ll gain extensive knowledge on topics like cultural competency, diversity, legal issues, privilege and oppression, self-care, activism, and more as they relate to domestic violence and sexual assault.

Additional Requirements:

At Freedom House we require all staff, volunteers and interns to understand domestic violence and sexual assault. The Volunteer Children’s Group Facilitator must enjoy working with kids ranging from toddler to teen. When dealing with the children, we require reliability, appropriate behavior when interacting with kids, ability to facilitate a group without supervision and the ability to handle challenging situations with calmness, adaptability and professionalism.

Volunteer Application process:

Visit the Volunteer Page (above) from our website:  www.freedomhouseillinois.org/volunteers/

Fill out and Send the completed volunteer application to:

Volunteer Coordinator – confidential

Freedom House, 440 Elm Place, Princeton, IL  61356

Or email your application to the following (MSWord, or PDF attachments):   info@freedomhouseillinois.com

Incomplete applications will not be considered.

Freedom House does not discriminate in volunteer or employment opportunities or practices on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, marital status, military status of sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by law. Freedom House will make reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with known disabilities unrelated to the ability to perform one’s job, unless doing so would result in an undue hardship to the organization. Employment with Freedom House is employment-at-will, meaning it is voluntarily entered into, and may be terminated at any time, without or with cause, by the employee or by Freedom House. Posting this notice does create a commitment by Freedom House to fill the position.