Team Roles

How To Serve

There are different ways to get involved with your new partnership with Green Pastures. These all help to house vulnerable people in your area and fulfill the amazing vision of the Church to end homelessness in the UK.  

1. Join the support prayer team - we know that prayer changes lives. Prayer for a smooth transition into their new home, that they will engage with our support, that their hearts will be softened to learn more about Jesus and prayer for other Green Pastures partners. You could become a prayer Champion for a particular resident. Every property, every resident, every day we need prayer.  
2. Donate money - your financial donations can help us to provide the best support possible for our residents. Your donation will make it possible for them to start training courses / buy new items for the house / receive professional counseling sessions.  
3. Donate items - There are a few things we need to make our new house a home. We are looking for good quality tables / chairs / beds / lamps / white goods / homewares.
4. Befriender - informal support in day to day activity e.g. accompanying someone to a doctor’s appointment, or taking them on a bike ride
5. Mentor - help the resident achieve a specific goal on their support plan
6. Invest - you can invest with Green Pastures to help them buy more properties for organisations just like us. You can invest from £1000 and you can choose your own interest rate from 0-5% return. Find out more by clicking here.
7. Become a part of our Team: help with administration; resident care or maintenance

Team Roles

As a Team Leader you will need to decide if you want any of your team members to undergo a Disclosure Barring Check (DBS) or another method of checking a team member. This may be through a team member Agreement Form.  

Administrator (Housing Management)  

Around 1.5 hours per week per resident required. For a 3-bed house, this would be 4.5 hours per week.

This role involves a large amount of work to set up and move in residents as well ongoing administrative tasks particularly when one resident moves out and another moves in:

Referrals

1. Finalising your referral form with your GP PM and then distributing the referral form to as many local referral agencies as possible. Ensure they have received this by email and find out if they would be prepared to refer to your supported housing project.  
2. Receiving referral forms from referral agencies and communicating with referral agencies.
3. Maintaining relationship with referral agencies

Sign Up  

1. Ensuring all resident applicants have the correct paperwork for Resident Sign Up meetings
2. Overseeing resident sign up for each new resident.

Housing Benefit  

1. Monitoring Housing Benefit claims and income.
2. Handle all communications with Housing Benefit for every claim and monitor to ensure rent is still being received. Dealing with any issues e.g. HB sanctions  

Utilities

1. Upon completion, inform water company that you are the new Landlord
2. Call gas company and set up gas card meter in house  
3. Call electric company and set up electric card meter in house  
4. Check that the right person on the team is collecting the weekly top up fee from residents (this is to cover utilities as you will see on the rent sheet)  

Lease

1. Checking the lease payments are going through monthly to Green Pastures  
2. Arranging signing and returning of the lease

Resident Support Admin

1. Managing the rota for resident care team
2. Checking the Resident Support team members have completed support plans correctly (on google drive)
3. Checking the Resident Support team members have contact logs plans correctly (on google drive)  

If you would like to find out more about this opportunity please contact us by email.

Resident Support Team

A minimum of 3 hours per week per residents, although may be up to 10 hours per week per resident. For a 3-bed house this would be a minimum of 9 hours per week. It's sensible to have more than one person responsible for Resident Support so that the work can be shared and it helps with succession planning.

Minimum commitment of 10-12 months for the sake of the resident and consistency.  

At 10 months the resident support team member can inform the resident support team leader if he or she will commit for a further time period.  

This is a role for people whose passion and skills are working with vulnerable people. To care for the needs of the residents in a structured way, with supporting documentation to demonstrate their progress. It is important for someone in this role that you are happy sharing your faith with the residents and their friends and families.  

This commitment involves:

1. Interviewing and assessing new potential residents
2. Creating a Support Plan together with the resident for each resident before they are housed
3. Working through the structured Support Plan with the resident. These will include items such as:
   - Teaching them healthy cooking and sharing meals together
   - Attempting to reconnect or repair relationships with other residents, friends or family
   - Assisting them in attending appointments
   - Helping the resident develop life skills
   - Assisting with CV writing
   - Assisting in searching for volunteer work, employed work or other meaningful activities
   - Assisting with conflict resolution
   - Attending house meetings
4. Spiritual Input
   - Praying together with residents where they are happy to engage in that way
   - Running an appropriately aimed bible study
   - Inviting them to church or other Christian events  

Maintenance

Amount of time required is sporadic. There will be times where there is no maintenance for weeks and then a number of items could be required in one day. Maintenance can include volunteers to carry out works or organise and monitor contractors. A point-of-contact needs to be always available for residents to be able to report maintenance works to. You can provide direct emergency call out contractors to residents e.g., plumbers and gas engineers for leaks, and will need to provide parameters so they are not called for general works.

Responsible for all upgrades in preparation for habitation and all ongoing maintenance of the property. Making repairs in the property or coordinating the relevant contractor if external help is needed. There is more work at the start of the partnership to complete the upgrades to the property so that the residents can move in. You do not have to be qualified in a trade but if you are please let us know. Whether you are a qualified electrician or just handy with a screwdriver this is a role for you.  

Responsibilities:  

Oversee maintenance work and any physical property needs:

1. Make repairs yourself where possible

Straight after property completion

1. Instruct contractors you have sourced for the various upgrades (checklist provided by GP)
2. Coordinate team members to tidy and paint the property if necessary  

Ongoing

1. Ensure the HMO standards for the property are met (if required) e.g. fire doors, smoke detectors
2. Ensure all certificates are kept up to date and copies are sent to GP
3. Complete the Annual Property Inspection Form and submit to GP  
4. Maintain a homely environment in the property e.g. painting, decorating and furnishing
5. Keep on top of minor and major repairs during the life of the partnership

As your project scales

As your project scales, the volunteer team does not necessarily scale at the same rate. Speak to your Partnership Manager for more guidance.

As an example, you might have 3 volunteer team members as follows:

• Volunteer 1: Administration & Resident Support - 7.5 hours per week
  Responsible for all Administration and one resident's support
• Volunteer 2: Maintenance & Resident Support - 6.5 hours per week
  Responsible for 2 residents' support and 0.5 hours per week of maintenance on average (i.e., odd jobs and covering)
• Volunteer 3: Maintenance - 1.5 hours per week (average)
  Overall responsibility for maintenance, able to call on volunteer 2 as and when needed