Purpose of the role

● To help provide an effective and efficient advice and assistance to the members of the public contacting Citizens Advice Swindon (CAS)
● To help influence government and other organisations by informing them of the effect of their actions on the lives of clients.

What will you do?

● complete an introduction to Citizens Advice and training for your role
● talk to clients over the phone, face to face, or online to explore what problems they’ve come for help with
● find information about the clients’ problems and help them to understand their options
● support clients to take action to resolve their problems. This might include drafting or writing letters, making phone calls, or referring the client to another organisation
● write a summary of the clients’ problems and what action you’ve taken
● look out for problems’ that are common, or are unfair, and write a short report about the problem or a letter to an elected official like an MP, AM or local councillor
Some examples of what you could do:
● help clients with debts work out a reasonable amount to pay back, and make a phone call to an organisation they owe money to.
● explore what benefits a client is entitled to and help them to complete a benefit application form.
● help a client who has problems with their landlord to understand their housing rights.

What’s in it for you?

● make a real difference to people’s lives
● learn about a range of issues such as benefits, debt, employment and housing.
● build on valuable skills such as communication, listening and problem solving, and increase your employability
● work with a range of different people, independently and in a team.
● have a positive impact in your community
● make new friends
● you can work from home

And we’ll reimburse reasonable travel expenses too if you decide to work from the office.

What do you need to have?
No prior experience is necessary in these areas as you’ll receive full training.

For individuals who are doing advice giving roles, and who are also training to be a solicitor, if you started training to be a solicitor before 1st September 2021, you may be able to get up to six months reduction in your training contract.

If you started training to be a solicitor after 1st September 2021, you may be able to include time spent volunteering (or working) in advice giving roles as part of (or all of) your qualifying work experience. See Solicitors Regulation Authority for more information.

How much time do you need to give?

Ideally we ask for 8 hours per week, which can be over one day or spread over two days, for at least 12 months.

We can be flexible so please come and talk to us.

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.

Contact details

If you are interested in becoming a Volunteer Adviser and would like an application pack and /or to discuss flexibility around location, time, what the role entails and how we can support you please contact us by emailing – training.email@caswindon.org.uk or call us on 01793 402106.