Volunteer With Us

Why volunteer with us?

All of our volunteers get something slightly different from the experience, but some of the most common benefits reported are:

  • making a difference to an individual’s life
  • changing the way things work for the better
  • receiving highly respected training
  • getting invaluable work experience
  • developing new skills
  • putting existing skills to good use
  • getting involved with the community
  • making new friends.

We’re looking for people to join our Trustee Board

Trustees are volunteers who are expected to use their skills, knowledge and experience to help guide and govern their local Citizens Advice. They work with the Chief Executive and other staff to shape strategy and give direction.

This includes making sure that we are:

  • doing what we were set-up to do, such as offering high quality advice services to the local community
  • complying with the law, including upkeep of premises, insurance, recruitment and equipment
  • securing money to meet current and new demands, and that all funds are used responsibly
  • recognised and valued by local organisations, funders and people, who are aware of the vital service that Citizens Advice provides.

Attendance at regular meetings is expected by all trustees. Sometimes trustees will get involved in additional governance projects, such as supporting fundraising, developing strategy or overseeing HR procedures.

Within a board, some trustees will have a specific role, such as being the Chair, Treasurer or Secretary. These positions have defined responsibilities, such as chairing and facilitating meetings (Chair), overseeing the budget (Treasurer) and taking and circulating minutes (Secretary).

 

Giving Advice

Volunteers who give advice to our clients are at the heart of our service and we could not manage without them. Volunteer advisers receive full training in the skills needed to help people deal with their problems and learn how to find the information the client needs from our extensive database. Volunteers are supported and supervised as they begin to give advice and will get feedback and development opportunities throughout their time with Citizens Advice. There are a variety of roles and tasks up to giving full advice. Advisers do some or all of this:

  • finding out the key points of a clients problem
  • finding out what a clients problem is and helping them understand self-help information so the client can act for themselves
  • helping a client with debts to work out a reasonable rate of repayment and supporting them to negotiate this with creditors
  • interviewing a homeless client to find out what their housing options are and helping the client decide their next steps
  • interviewing a client that has been sacked and finding out whether they have lost their job unfairly or not.

You don’t need specific qualifications or experience to train for the role. You’d need:

  • an ability to understand complex information
  • be polite and good at listening
  • to be familiar with using keyboard skills and searching the internet
  • to be able to input data accurately
  • a good level of literacy and numeracy
  • to be open minded and not judge clients
  • to enjoy helping people.

Telephone Assessors

A telephone assessor is a diverse role and you’ll not be expected to know it all. We train all our telephone assessors, which help in developing the skills needed to deliver an excellent level of service to our clients.

As a telephone assessor you’d:

  • be the first point of access for Citizens Advice clients and when they call our national telephone service number
  • help with a wide range of problems and issues our clients face
  • support the general public across all ages and backgrounds
  • give information from our Citizens Advice online information system and other sources to our clients
  • refer our clients to more specialist advice where needed
  • keep records of all our clients cases on the database
  • help prevent future problems for wider society by identifying issues that affect a lot of our clients.

You don’t need specific qualifications or experience to train for the role. You need to:

  • be good at listening
  • have a good telephone manner
  • be confident or familiar with keyboard skills, including searching the internet
  • be confident inputting data
  • maintain case records
  • be open minded and not judge clients
  • enjoy helping people.

Try our Quiz

Why not have a go at our short quiz to find out which area of volunteering in local Citizens Advice or Witness Service you might be interested in?