Refugee mentors

These volunteers provide community-based support and friendship to adult refugees living with HIV across London. The service can be provided to people in their own homes or in another safe community space, as arranged between the volunteer and the service user.

Aims

Through Refugee mentoring we aim to:

• Provide practical, emotional and social support
• Prevent crisis
• Relieve isolation and help rebuild confidence
• Support and enable people to lead as independent a life as possible
• Provide guidance and support to service users when making decisions about treatments and other life choices

At regular intervals we review our service with our clients to make sure it is still meeting their needs, looking at whether original goals have been met and identifying any new needs. Volunteers are then required to complete the necessary review paperwork.

What the service provides

As a Refugee mentor you will:

• Advice and help with accessing information about HIV, safer sex, and treatments
• Support around concerns about living with HIV
• Support around concerns about living as a refugee or as someone with insecure immigration status
• Advice and practical help in accessing other services such as social services, appropriate healthcare, and legal and immigration advice
• Advice and practical help in accessing ESOL and IT courses and other skills development opportunities, volunteering opportunities and work placements
• Advice and practical help in accessing information on returning to work or volunteering opportunities
• Help in accessing other THT and Lighthouse specialist services
• Support on how to inform friends, family and/or community about diagnosis or health
• Support in times of crisis or life choices
• Be someone to talk to

Your role is to be a good, dependable source of information and, above all, someone to talk to.

What the service can’t provide

We can't do everything for our clients, and we don't expect our volunteers to:

• Go on regular shopping trips
• Cook or preparing meals
• Do domestic chores
• Undertake practical tasks such as DIY, painting and decorating or gardening
• Be a regular interpreter

The service isn’t for people who:

• Have severe mental health problems
• Have chronic drug or alcohol problems
• Live in an unsafe (violent) environment

How we support our volunteers

Full training is provided before you join the service to ensure you’re equipped with the knowledge and skills required to be a Refugee mentor. Ongoing skills training is also provided at regular intervals. You are required to attend monthly support group meetings to provide you with the opportunity to discuss your work and to learn from the experiences of other volunteers in your group.