Job Description

Help support the most lonely and isolated across the UK

Social isolation and loneliness are growing concerns and there are 1.2 million chronically lonely older people in the UK. GoodGym focuses on preventing these issues. We are a growing community of runners who get fit by doing good. We are growing from our existing operations in 39 areas to every city in the UK.  If you’re passionate about making a difference, highly organised and love working with older people, we want to talk to you about being our new older people’s operations coordinator.

Team: Older People Operations

Contract Type: 12 months

Hours: 5 days (37.5 hours) per week.

Location: Based at GoodGym central, Somerset House, Strand, WC2R 1LA

Accountable for: supervising GoodGym runners (volunteers), and representative volunteers, supporting older people

Accountable to: Older People Operations Team Leader

Interview date: 6th March

Job purpose

As part of GoodGym's Older People's Operations Team you will play a key role in the organisation. You will be tackling social isolation and loneliness by supporting older people across the UK. The work will focus on pairing individual runners with isolated older people in their community (Coach Runs) and supporting runners and older people in existing pairings. It will also involve supporting our Missions Coordinator with organising one-off practical tasks for older people (Missions).

Coordination and support of these activities is managed remotely from the GoodGym office.

Primary Responsibilities

Coach Runs

• To support runners that want to be paired and to ensure they have submitted references, passed a DBS check and completed the GoodGym online training to a satisfactory standard

• To conduct post-training assessments over the phone for runners in order to ensure they understand the befriending role and GoodGym policies and procedures

• To coordinate the pairing of runners with older people in their area, including setting up the first meeting.

• To contribute to the production of communications for both runners and older people in regards to pairing

Missions

• Provide administrative support for Missions such as communicating with referrers, listing tasks on the GoodGym website, assigning runners to tasks and following up with beneficiaries on the phone.

Runner/Older People Support

• To act as the main contact for runners and older people involved in coach runs.

• To support runner/coach relationships and offer advice where necessary

• To encourage runners to feedback on their progress and to track their coach runs

• To invite and respond to any queries from older people or runners

• To troubleshoot and resolve any issues emerging from monitoring of relationships

• To report to the Older People Operations Team Leader if any safeguarding issues/allegations are made in line with GoodGym’s Safeguarding Policy

• To ensure that all records for older people and runners are kept up to date and easily accessible for reporting

• To support runners’ queries when other staff are not available or unable to respond

• To support runners through the process of DBS application

Referral Management

• To screen and process referrals for coach runs and missions, ensuring that all of the required information is gathered.

• To maintain and promote a positive relationship with referral agencies over the phone, by email and through face to face meetings as required.

Other Responsibilities

• To contribute to the development of the older people operations team and respective processes and policies

Please note:

This role description is not intended to be exhaustive in every respect but rather to clearly define the fundamental purpose, responsibilities and dimensions for the role. In addition to the contents of this role description, employees are expected to undertake any and all other reasonable and related tasks that help achieve the goals of the organisation.

Person Specification

Knowledge

• An understanding and empathy towards the needs of older people

• Awareness of services available to older people

• An understanding of what befriending is and where it fits in with existing statutory and voluntary services

Skills and abilities

• Excellent verbal communication skills, particularly over the phone

• Excellent written communication skills

• Ability to provide information, advice and assistance appropriately, to volunteers and older people who use GoodGym’s services

• Ability to build strong relationships with people from a variety of backgrounds

• Record management skills and attention to detail

• Ability to work from own initiative and as part of a team

• Ability to assess an individual's understanding of a subject, either in a voluntary or professional capacity

• IT literate and able to pick up new systems quickly

Experience

• Experience of working with or supervising volunteers

• Experience managing relationships with a variety of internal and external stakeholders

• Experience in the voluntary sector or health and social care setting or with health and social care providers

• Experience of working or volunteering with older people

More about GoodGym

GoodGym is a charity that channels the energy wasted during exercise into social good. We connect runners, or those who want to get fit, with physical tasks which benefit their community including extensive work supporting older people.  Backed by the Cabinet Office and Nesta, GoodGym has been cited by leading think-tanks and national media as a leading innovation in health and wellbeing and is described as an important innovation by the Prime Minister.  GoodGym is expanding to every city in the UK, its central office is in Somerset House, London.

Please include a cover letter and CV in your application.