Volunteering
Volunteers play a pivotal role in enabling Citizens Advice Haringey to deliver advice services in the community. As demand for our services continues to increase, we need high calibre people to join our team to train as volunteer advisers. Do you have what we are looking for?
Being a volunteer at Citizens Advice Haringey is both a challenging and rewarding experience. Our volunteers come from a wide range of backgrounds including young people, students, parents/carers, people returning to work and retirees.
What will you do?
- Participate in Citizens Advice’s bespoke training programme.
- Assist the Community Navigation Service (CNS) to develop client facing soft skills whilst getting hands-on experience of advice processes and systems.
- Progress to a stage in training and proficiency, where you can deliver advice via our telephone advice service – Adviceline, as well as email and chat advice.
Continue your training and development to the point you become a qualified adviser, where you can give full advice to clients and perform appointments and casework.
What’s in it for you?
- Contribute to making a real difference to people’s lives, by helping clients gain knowledge and confidence.
- Learn about a range of issues such as benefits, debt, employment and housing
- Opportunity to develop your skills and increase your employability
- Be part of a diverse and vibrant team
- Build on valuable skills such as communication, listening, using your initiative and problem solving
- Reimbursement of out of pocket travel expenses.
What skills do you need to have?
Essential Skills:
- Be friendly and approachable, non-judgmental and respect views, values and cultures that are different to your own
- Have excellent verbal and written communication skills
- Ability to assess client’s problems using sensitive listening and questioning
- A good level of IT literacy
- Able to understand complex information and explain it to others
- Be willing to learn about and follow the Citizens Advice aims, principles and policies, including confidentiality and data protection
- A commitment to the training programme and continuous professional development (CPD)
Desirable Skills:
- Ability to touch type at 30-40 words per minute
- Speak a community language
How much time do you need to give?
During your initial training period, we ask for a minimum of 1 day a week along with self study time. As you start to assist in service delivery we ask for a minimum of 2 days a week, which can be spread over the week. Ideally, we would like our volunteers to commit to at least a 12 month period of volunteering with us.
Training and Development
Citizens Advice used the Skillsbook online training platform. This is used in conjunction with classroom based training and self-study to progress your training journey from your induction through to qualifying as an adviser. Upon completion of this training you will have access to Continued Professional Development (CPD) with ongoing training.
Valuing inclusion
Our volunteers come from a range of backgrounds and we particularly welcome applications from disabled people, people with physical or mental health conditions, LGBT+ and non-binary people, and people from Black Asian Minority Ethnic (BAME) communities.
How to apply
If you are interested in joining our team of volunteers then please complete this online application form and we shall be in contact with you shortly. If you have any questions regarding volunteering please contact us at: volunteer.recruitment@citizensadviceharingey.org.uk
