Advisers

Volunteering at CAB as an adviser is hugely rewarding. Each session is different. Clients come to us with issues as diverse as consumer issues through to housing problems and those simply needing to be signposted to another organisation. We are looking for people who love to work as part of our friendly team and have an open and enthusiastic manner. Advisers help clients reach informed decisions and may assist in drafting letters, making phone calls and filling in forms.

Perhaps you’ve never considered being an advisor before and worry that you don’t know enough to give advice. The key message is that you don’t need to know anything – Citizens Advice give full training and you are expected to look up the information for every enquiry on our advice system. You don’t need to have lots of knowledge, you just need to be a good listener, be interested in helping people and be able to break down information and explain it to others. Enquiries and advice are recorded on to an online system, so you need some basic computer skills.

Experience required

Good communication skills and good at listening.

Training details

The training for volunteer advisers is all online modules that can be completed at your own pace or you can sign up to a 6-week course that is run by a CAB trainer. They deliver the training in zoom sessions for 2-3 days per week over the 6 weeks. It is up to the volunteer which method they prefer. Once a volunteer adviser is fully trained, they continue to get constant support permanently. We have an Advice Session Supervisor on duty every day who is on call for any queries the volunteers have, and we also check every case to ensure the advice given was correct.

Frequency & commitment

We have space every day except a Wednesday just now. We ask for advisers to give us 1 day a week of their time - this can be a short day to fit in with school hours as most of our client appointments are between 10am and 2pm so they can easily finish by 2.30.

I want to volunteer