Welcome to WeSwim. Your role is extremely important to us, so thank you for your interest in volunteering.
Here you’ll find all the information that you need to know to make the most of your volunteering opportunity with WeSwim.
Let us know if you think we’ve missed anything and we’ll be happy to help on info@weswim.club
As a volunteer you have two main responsibilities:
Firstly, helping people in the water. This could be providing physical support, encouraging their swimming stroke, adjusting floats or helping them to carry out physio exercises that they have been given. You do not need to be a qualified swimming teacher or elite swimmer yourself, we will give you the training and support you need.
Secondly, chatting to our disabled swimmers and make them feel welcome. Loneliness and isolation is very common amongst disabled people. Our Clubs are a community, bringing people together in the water to have a good time and make meaningful friendships.
Before swimming, you will attend a one-off training session where we cover what happens in a pool session, what is expected of you, safeguarding, boundaries, health and safety.
We also run regular training sessions to expand people’s knowledge in different areas. This could be specific to individual disabilities, e.g. how to guide a blind person, or guidance from a physiotherapist on what exercises you can help people with. It is a varied agenda of training opportunities.
Most of the time no. Your role will be to chat to people, give them tips, swim alongside them, and help them do exercises. Sometimes you may be asked to support physically for expample: putting your hands on someone’s back as they float, or adjusting someone’s hand on a float. There are lots of people around, supporting each other. If you are not comfortable, tell us and we can help.
Swimwear (we suggest not a bikini to avoid making others feel uncomfortable), towel, toiletries, money for the locker.
We recognise that our volunteers lead busy lives, and we want to work around that. We ask that you come at least twice a month, and if you have committed to coming to a session, that you don’t cancel unless it's unavoidable. We will send a monthly sign up poll and you can decide which dates work best for you.
If you are not feeling well, please let us know as early as possible on the day and we will try to get a volunteer to fill your place. If not enough volunteers come, we may have to turn swimmers away, which we would like to avoid.
No. If our swimmers need help in the changing room, we ask them to bring a carer or family member. Your role is purely in the pool and supporting social interaction.
Before you get into the pool, you will be given Health and Safety training during your volunteer training session to make sure you feel confident supporting our swimmers. Our pool committee will be supporting from the poolside making sure everyone is comfortable and supported. In addition, there are always lifeguards poolside, and ultimately, they are responsible for our swimmers’ safety. If you have any specific concerns about a swimmer, please talk to the committee. We are aware that an individual’s circumstances change, and we are always working with our swimmers to adapt and make it as safe for them as possible.
Our clubs are run by a team of dedicated volunteers who take the lead running the sessions. WeSwim staff support with the organisation before the session and then hand over to the committee to deliver the session. It’s a partnership! If you are interested in getting involved on the committee lets us know. We look for people who are good at organising, bringing people together, recognising skills in others, reliable, and have built up good relations with club members. It is a fantastic development opportunity for those who want a bit more from their sessions. Training will be provided for this role. Please let us know if you are interested.
Word of mouth is the best way to get fantastic volunteers, so please do spread the word. They will be more than welcome, but we will need to perform a DBS check and carry out training before they can join.
They can find out more information and [apply to become a volunteer here].
We are really happy they want to attend. Please ask [them to fill out an application form here] and we’ll check what support they need and get them in the water as soon as we can.
If you are concerned about the behaviour of a We Swim swimmer or volunteer you should follow the We Swim safeguarding process, details are here. If you are unsure of the best course of action please contact the WeSwim Safeguarding Officer: tash@weswim.club.
We ask you to keep your friendships within WeSwim and refrain from sharing contact details with the swimmers. This is to ensure everyone’s safety.
If a swimmer asks to swap contact details with you, please explain that you’ve been asked by the WeSwim team not to give these out or to take other people’s but that you’d love to see and spend time with them at another WeSwim session soon.
No. We ask you to keep your friendships within the swimming club and WeSwim events.
If a swimmer asks if you can walk home with them, please don’t feel any pressure to do so. Feel free to politely decline or explain that you need to head to another engagement. If it’s not out of your way and you’re happy to walk home with them, let a WeSwim committee member know that you’re planning on doing this, and once you’ve arrived, please don’t go inside their home.
We are always looking for other help. We always need support with fundraising, you could hold an event, do a sponsored swim, or talk to whoever manages charity donations at your work. We are also looking to use people’s professional skills on an ad hoc basis - we’ve recently had some fabulous volunteers supporting us with all sorts of things: an evaluation report, corporate outreach, and collecting case studies. If you are interested in supporting WeSwim out of the water too get in touch with tash@weswim.org
If you are concerned about the welfare of a swimmer you should follow the WeSwim safeguarding process, details are here. If you are unsure of the best course of action please contact our Safeguarding officer tash@weswim.club who will be able to help.