-
"Blue Smile offers longer-term children's arts-based therapy clinical roles and supported volunteer clinical placements. We provide free supervision and specialist practitioner trainings and great opportunities for career progression - why not join our team?"
Jess Manley, Charity Director, Blue Smile
Work with us
Work with us
Blue Smile is working in a number of Cambridgeshire schools and the service is growing fast to meet the local need, so there are opportunities for placements and career progression. Voluntary clinical placements are available for counselling and psychotherapy students and graduates looking to build their hours or working towards accreditation. Blue Smile follows safer recruiting policy and practice.
In our office
Volunteers
Volunteer Fundraising Hero
We need a flexible volunteer to help with our fundraising efforts in the office and at occasional events. This may include managing our fundraising merchandise (T-shirts, balloons, pop-up stands, collecting tins, etc.), helping out with some administrative tasks or attending local events to help promote Blue Smile’s work.
You will have some contact with the lovely people who fundraise for us so you will be a friendly and supportive person as well as being organised and methodical. The amount of time you would volunteer would be your choice but a regular commitment would be greatly appreciated.
Volunteer Collection Tin Hero
Would you like to work as a part of a small team to oversee our network of collection boxes in shops, cafés, pubs and restaurants? You would help us raise vital funds for this expanding children’s mental health charity, while publicising the essential work our therapists do to improve the lives of troubled children.
The work involves keeping track of the tins via our log, making sure they are emptied reasonably regularly, counting the collection and returning it to the office or to the bank and sending a thank you certificate to the premises owner or manager. You would be given support by our team working in the office and, as this is a new role, we could discuss with you how best it could work to make sure that it suits you. We depend upon donations, great and small, so this is a vital volunteering role, which could also be very satisfying and fun for two or three friends. The amount of time you would volunteer would be your choice, but a regular commitment would be greatly appreciated.
To apply to be a Blue Smile volunteer, please complete and return the application below, and let us know if you are applying for a specific role.
Volunteer Office Hero
We are looking for an ‘Office Hero’ to volunteer in Blue Smile’s central office to help us provide essential support in clinical administration, communication and fundraising for our service as it works towards our vision of a world where happier children have brighter futures.
In our clinical teams
*New job* School Clinical Lead
We are recruiting an employed SCHOOL CLINICAL LEAD based at Cherry Hinton Primary school on a Monday, starting in September 2022.
The main purpose of the Blue Smile School Clinical Lead:
- To effectively manage the clinical service in their designated Partner School acting as the primary point of contact in schools.
- To lead and support a team of self-employed therapists, volunteer trainee therapists on clinical placement and volunteer mentors.
- To support development and delivery of the clinical service to a high standard, protecting and promoting Blue Smile’s reputation for a high quality, responsive service for children, families and schools.
A summary of the terms is listed below with a full job description and person specification attached.
Job Title: School Clinical Lead
Hours: 11 hours per week; 39 weeks per year
Salary: £7,850 per annum (based on 39 weeks of work + 5.6 weeks of annual leave) paid monthly for 12 months of the year (£29,120 FTE). Annual leave to be taken in the school holidays
Place of work: On-site/Home-based – 7.5 hours/week in the allocated partner school (Monday); 3.5 hours/week can be worked flexibly
Responsible to: Clinical Services Manager
Responsible for: Self-employed therapists, trainee therapists on placement & volunteer mentors
If you would like to apply, please could you send your completed application form to vicki.osborne@bluesmile.org.uk by the end of Sunday 5th June 2022.
*New roles* Senior Therapists
We are recruiting two self-employed SENIOR THERAPISTS to work in the following Blue Smile partner schools from September.
- Shirley Primary School – Monday
- Histon & Impington Brook Primary School – Friday
| FEES AND EXPENSES | |
| Maximum rate per hour | £16.00 |
| Maximum number of hours per week | 6 |
| Maximum number of weeks per year | 39 |
A role description and person specification are attached.
If you would like to apply, please could you send your completed application form to vicki.osborne@bluesmile.org.uk by the end of Sunday 5th June 2022, stating which role/day you are applying for.
*WANTED* Outreach Therapists
We are looking for qualified therapists, with at least one year’s post-qualification experience, to deliver the Blue Smile clinical service in our Outreach schools. Outreach therapists can expect:
- experience of work with a diverse range of clients
- paid admin time supporting the clinical work
- the opportunity to work quite independently but with the oversight of an experienced Outreach Coordinator
- the chance to build managerial skills in handling referrals and liaising with teachers
- training and CPD
- career progression within exciting clinical service.
Self-employed Outreach Therapists work in an allocated school, picking up several cases. There is some flexibility, so the work can fit well with existing commitments and builds into very valuable professional development to more senior roles.
Outreach Therapist role description
Therapist Clinical Placements
Therapist clinical placements – volunteer counsellors and therapists
Blue Smile uses an arts-based therapeutic model to help children and young people to regulate their emotions and organise their thoughts. Ideally, we are looking for applicants who are in at least the second year of a level 6 course (or equivalent) in counselling or therapy with children. However, we will consider applicants at an earlier stage of training but who have significant therapeutic experience of working with children in relevant settings.
A Blue Smile therapist clinical placement offers:
- Experience of working as part of a team in a school
- Clinical hours
- Training and continuing professional development
- Group supervision
- Career opportunities
Team Leaders will provide on-going support and guidance throughout the placement.
Therapist clinical placement volunteers will be required to have an interview, enhanced DBS (criminal record) check, references and an induction.
Our placements involve a minimum of half a day once a week in term time, ideally for a commitment of at least one academic year. The work may be both short and long-term, depending on an assessment of need on referral. We provide fortnightly group supervision, as well as training and career development opportunities.
Please contact: info@bluesmile.org.uk
Volunteer mentoring
Blue Smile offers mentoring opportunities which involve supporting a child or young person in school struggling with some emotional or behavioural difficulties. Mentors are required to have experience of working with children in relevant settings, particularly with children who need support because of the difficulties they face.
A pupil with such difficulties may not require counselling, but would really benefit from a reliable and consistent adult in their lives, prepared to go the extra mile for them. Mentors become a valuable role model who will listen, play and help a child make sense of confusing or difficult feelings.
Volunteer mentors commit to giving at least an hour a week to befriend one or two children in a school, helping to build their self-esteem, to engage better in school life and to simply have fun.
Volunteers will be required to have an interview, an enhanced DBS (criminal record) check, references and an induction interview.
Contact: info@bluesmile.org.uk
Trustee Vacancies
If you are interested in becoming a Trustee, please contact us at info@bluesmile.org.uk.
Criminal record (DBS) checks
Blue Smile carries out safe recruitment checks on anyone who works with children for us. All roles require a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) or Disclosure Scotland check and references before the individual joins us. Regular safeguarding training is provided.
Diversity and Inclusion
Blue Smile is committed to equal opportunities and we positively encourage applications from all sections of the community.
Data Protection
If you wish to find out more about your data and how it will be used you can read our privacy statement here.
Safeguarding
Blue Smile is committed to safeguarding children in all aspects of our work, including recruitment, as outlined in our Safer Recruitment Policy and Procedures.
Recruitment of Ex-Offenders
Please click here for our policy on recruitment of ex-offenders.
