Volunteer & People Lead

Volunteer & People Lead (12 Month Fixed Term Contract)

Salary £36,690 FTE

37.5 hours per week considered

Are you ready to lead and grow our volunteering programme, ensuring volunteers are engaged, developed and empowered to make a real difference?

Are you passionate about creating meaningful reward and recognition experiences that celebrate contribution and reinforce our values

Are you motivated to help build an incredible workplace culture where staff and volunteers can thrive and deliver their very best

If this sounds like you, we’d love for you to join us, apply today and help shape the future of our charity’s culture.

Bring your purpose and authentic self to Bluebell Wood Children’s Hospice. You’ll help ensure that babies, children, and young people with life-limiting conditions—and their families—receive the specialist care and support they deserve, wherever and whenever they need.

About us:

Our vision at Bluebell Wood is for every baby, child and young person with a life limiting condition to access specialist palliative care, where and when they need it. You will join our fantastic team where we all play our part in achieving our vision and creating an incredible culture for everyone.

Why your role matters:

Our uncompromisable support services are wide-ranging and bespoke to each family. We provide symptom management, end-of-life care, post-death care, short breaks, counselling, sibling support groups, music therapy, home visits and more.

We support families across a large geographical area, including South Yorkshire, North Nottinghamshire, North Derbyshire and parts of North Lincolnshire. The hospice is easily accessible from Barnsley, Rotherham, Doncaster, Sheffield and North Notts, making our reach truly regional and inclusive.

Every year, we must raise £6.7 million to keep our doors open, and only 17% comes from government sources. The rest is powered by the generosity and commitment of supporters like you. Your leadership in corporate fundraising will help secure vital resources, build strategic partnerships, and create a sustainable future for our hospice.

The role:

If you’re at your best when you’re building brilliant culture and making volunteering work seamlessly, this role puts you right at the heart of our hospice. You’ll lead our volunteering offer and key people projects—helping our staff and volunteers feel valued, supported and equipped to make a difference for babies, children and young people with life-limiting conditions, and for their families.

Working closely with the Head of People, you’ll partner with teams across the hospice (including fundraising, facilities, care and communications) to deliver people projects and help bring our people strategy to life — creating an incredible culture and volunteer experience.

  What you’ll do:

• Lead and continually improve the end-to-end volunteer journey: recruitment, induction, recognition, retention and engagement.
• Deliver people projects that strengthen culture, wellbeing, inclusion and day-to-day experiences for colleagues and volunteers.
• Partner with teams across the hospice (including fundraising, facilities, care and communications) to plan skills, build capability and solve people challenges.
• Use insight and data (qualitative and quantitative) to review what’s working, spot opportunities and improve our volunteering proposition—especially for events and hospice-wide activity.
• Ensure volunteer systems, records and compliance are robust and accurate, aligned to GDPR, the Code of Fundraising Practice and CQC requirements.
• Build our profile externally representing Bluebell Wood at events and networks related to volunteering and people.

 What You’ll Bring:

• Strong HR and/or volunteer management experience, including leading or supervising a small team.
• Confidence running multiple priorities—planning, organising and delivering projects on time.
• Experience of workforce/skills planning and working in partnership with stakeholders at different levels.
• A proactive, curious approach—always looking for ways to improve experiences and outcomes.
• Great communication skills and the ability to influence and build relationships across teams.
• Sound knowledge of relevant legislation and best practice, with a clear commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion.
• Comfortable with digital tools (e.g., Microsoft Office) and using social media to support engagement.

Nice to have: CIPD (or similar), project management accreditation, experience with HR/volunteer management systems, and strong reporting/data analysis skills.

About you:

Our values underpin what we do and how we do it.

To succeed in this role, we are looking for someone who will embody our values, work confidently with key attention to detail, engage with everyone in our hospice, and has an absolute willingness to learn.

What we offer:

In return, we can offer you a fantastic working environment and the following benefits:

• 25 days’ annual leave plus bank holidays with the option to buy and sell
• Employee assistance programme - including mental health care and out of hours GP access
• A commitment to your professional development
• Matched pension scheme of 5% of salary
• Enhanced maternity and paternity pay
• Free parking on main site
• Subsidised lunch
• Free tea and coffee
• Cycle to work scheme
• Eligible for NHS Blue Light Card

If you are passionate about making a difference, we cannot wait to hear from you.

Join us and be part of something bigger—where your skills, passion, and purpose create joy, support and comfort for those who need it most. Apply Now

If you would like an informal chat about the role, please do contact Liz Crawshaw (Head of People) on 01909 393 265, or email liz.crawshaw@bluebellwood.org

Download the Job description and person specification here.

Download the Equal Opportunities Monitoring Form here 

Please download the job description and person specification for further details. If you feel you have the skills and experience we are looking for, please submit your CV, a supporting statement, and a completed Equal Opportunities Monitoring Form.

Applications should be sent to recruitment@bluebellwood.org

Previous applicants need not apply

Closing date: 21st April 2026

Interviews:     1st May 2026

What else we will need, or you need to know:

• Proof that you have the right to work in the UK. Unfortunately, we cannot support visa sponsorship
• Any successful applicant will require a health check
• A Standard DBS Check
• Two references
• All offers of employment are conditional upon satisfactory completion of pre-employment checks

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