Volunteer With Us

ADVICE TEAM – GATEWAY ASSESSOR VOLUNTEER

Hours Required: At least 2 days per week (9.30 am – 4.30 pm) for at least 6 months.

We recruit and train volunteers to join our Advice Team as Gateway Assessors. This is a key frontline role helping people who are seeking information and advice. Gateway Assessors find out about the client’s problem and situation, and how we can assist them. This might be providing information, making an appointment with an Adviser, or making a referral to another organisation.    

We start a number of Gateway Assessor volunteer programmes during the year. The Gateway Assessor certificate programme takes approximately 6 months to complete, and for the first 6 weeks there is initial training including group training each week. On completion of the Gateway Assessor programme volunteers may go on to undertake training to become volunteer Advisers.

This role involves:

• completing an introduction to Citizens Advice and training for your role
• talking to clients face to face, over the phone, or online to explore what problems they need help with
• finding information about the clients’ problems and helping them to understand their options.
• assessing and agreeing the appropriate next step with the client
• writing a summary of the clients’ problems and what action you’ve taken
• looking out for problems that are common, or are unfair, and writing a short report about the problem or a letter to an elected official like an MP, AM or local councillor.

ADVICE ASSISTANT VOLUNTEER

Hours Required: At least 1 day per week for at least 4 months, ideally 9.30 am – 4.30 pm .

Advice Assistant Volunteers work with our Operations Team and Advice Teams to provide administrative support for our services to clients.        

In this role the range of tasks may include:

• maintaining client records and inputting data.
• assisting with the reception service when people visit the service.
• handling correspondence and other documents
• handling phone calls and taking messages
• completing satisfaction surveys with clients
• working with the Advice Team to help clients with specific tasks, such as completing an application form or finding required information online
• contributing to our research and campaigns work by identifying issues that affect a lot of clients