In some situations communities will be looking to recruit a Co-worker or Guest Volunteer of a particular gender. While all communities uphold the principles of non-discrimination this need arises at times to preserve the privacy and decency of residents who require personal care.
Most Guest Volunteer vacancies are open to young people from the age of 18. A higher stated minimum age will indicate that the responsibilities that the community expects you to take on require a higher level of maturity and life experience, e.g. work with children, students or residents with mental health problems, challenging behaviour etc. All Co-workers will shoulder responsibilities that usually require the maturity and life experience of someone who has undertaken some vocational or professional training and experience. A minimum age of 21 or 23 is therefore normally indicated.
For Co-workers the minimum length of stay is often 2 years. This reflects the levels and nature of responsibility that you will take on in this capacity. For Guest Volunteers the minimim length of stay is often 6 months. However, many communities, particularly schools and college communities, will only accept you if you can commit to a year or a full academic year. Most induction and foundation training programmes are structured for a year's cycle and start in early September.
Many of our residents have difficulties to communicate in spoken language. This can lead to frustration for them. Volunteers and Co-workers with limited spoken English increase these difficulties. The level of responsibility you will carry require you to have a sound (Volunteers) or advanced and reliable (Co-workers) command of both verbal and written English language.
A minority of communities will consider requests from social work students or other students in the welfare professions for short placements. These will often be of 3 months duration. However, few communities can offer the sructured professional supervision for such students that is often required by the student's university. Vacancies for such placements will be found in the Guest Volunteer section of this website.
Most communities welcome applications from young German men who wish to do their 'Andere Dienst im Ausland' (alternative to military and civil service) as a Camphill Guest Volunteer. Communities also welcome young German individuals to join them for a year through the 'Freies Soziales Jahr' scheme. VIA (Verein fur Interkulturellen Austausch) and 'Freunde der Erziehungskunst Rudolf Steiner's' are frequent placing organisations. Only a small number of communities are set up to host volunteers through EVS, the European Voluntary Service scheme. For all these please see vacancies in the Guest Volunteer section.
Our regulatory framework in the field of work with vulnerable children, students and adults in the UK has made it very difficult to now have anyone under 18 and without the full programme of Induction training share in the work of Camphill Communities. Any such person is by law no longer allowed to have unsupervised contact with those in our care. Therefore only a very small and decreasing number of Camphill Communities in the UK are able to accommodate some students for their social practical. However, all receive an enormous number of applications. It is therefore unlikely that you will find a place. Those communities that do tend to accept students through existing personal contacts to particular schools or teachers.
Most communities welcome the help from local volunteers who are able to offer a few hours each week. If you wish to help in this way please get in touch with the community nearest to you. This website does not list local volunteering vacancies. Due to the nature of our work you will normally need to go through an application process that will involve confidential references and an enhanced Criminal Background Check.
A small number of rural, land-based Communities with adult residents in the UK offer short-term placements for summer visitors. These are between 3 weeks and 3 months duration, typically between June and August. As a summer visitor you would normally be involved in field work on a farm or garden and be part of a house community. You need to be over 18 years old. There are always far more applications than places and these are usually filled more than 6 months in advance. Summer visitor vacancies are therefore not advertised on this website. Schools and Further Education Colleges cannot take summer visitors as they are closed for some of July and all of August.
If you are a citizen of a country outside the European Economic Area (EEA) you will require UK entry clearance. As a Guest Volunteer you will normally apply for entry clearance to do voluntary work. Your visa will be valid for working and living in a particular Camphill Community and limits your stay to 12 months.
For Co-worker applicants from countries outside the EEA the prospect of staying beyond 12 months has become more and more difficult over the past years due to ever increasing UK immigration restrictions. In fact the chances for such a stay of more than 12 months are now quite small. You will usually also apply for a Voluntary Work visa with a time limit of 12 months. For Co-workers 'trained in Steiner Methods' there is currently a special concession in place that may enable a longer stay. This will be withdrawn by the UK Home Office in summer 2008. All visa considerations will need to be discussed with your admissions contact in the community you are applying to.
There is no central application processing for Camphill Communities in the UK. Each Community deals directly with their applicants. Each application is considered on an individual basis and on its merits. There are no group applications. All applicants will need to provide detailed information including two confidential references and will be subject to UK and/or overseas Criminal Background Checks. Please use the Vacancies information for Co-workers, Guest Volunteers or Employment on this website to select vacancies you are interested in and send your enquiry directly to the Community recruitment contact, ideally using the online enquiry facility of this website.
For Employment positions the recruitment process will be subject to the provisions of statutory employment law and regulations.