Volunteer Befriender
Please see the documented named Volunteer Role Description
Volunteering at Maytree offers a rare chance to make a real impact. You’ll be part of a warm, supportive community where compassionate conversations, shared meals and simple everyday moments can genuinely help someone in suicidal crisis feel seen, valued and less alone.
Our sanctuary-style house is calm, nurturing and deeply relational and volunteers often describe their time here as meaningful, grounding and perspective-shifting. You’ll join a diverse volunteer team, contribute to a home-like environment and experience the power of human connection at its most essential. It’s an opportunity to be part of a model rooted in trust, empathy, openness and non-judgement - values at the heart of everything we do.
As a Volunteer Befriender, you’ll develop core skills that stay with you for life. You’ll learn to listen deeply, support others with emotional steadiness and hold compassionate boundaries — all essential for careers in mental health, social care, psychology, medicine, counselling or any people-focused field. You’ll gain confidence in having difficult conversations, supporting someone in distress, and working as part of a reflective, collaborative team. You’ll also receive training in our befriending model, suicide awareness, safeguarding, confidentiality, practical support skills and ongoing reflective group sessions. This is a unique learning environment where you build resilience, emotional intelligence, interpersonal presence and a strong sense of social responsibility.
We welcome students from all backgrounds who feel drawn to offer compassion, presence and humanity to people in suicidal crisis. You don’t need prior experience — just the capacity to listen, reflect, and stay steady in sensitive conversations. We’re looking for volunteers who are open-minded, non-judgemental, reliable and emotionally self-aware, and who resonate with Maytree’s core values of trust, respect, empathy, openness and equity. You’ll need to be able to move around the house independently, communicate clearly, manage your own wellbeing during shifts, and commit to our training and minimum volunteering period (1 year). If you’re someone who cares deeply about people and wants to make a meaningful difference, we’d love to hear from you.
