St Pauls Advice Centre - Peer-support project volunteers needed.
St Pauls Advice Centre are looking for more volunteers to join our Advocato peer-support project and we’re hoping you can help us spread the message!
Our volunteers help clients 1:1 with disability benefit forms and to make charitable applications for one-off costs. We get several enquiries and referrals for this type of help every week but can’t always meet the demand.
We’re looking for volunteers who have lived experience of the benefits system or supporting others with this and other welfare-related issues, such as housing or immigration. By using their own lived experience, our volunteers show empathy and build trust with clients who may find it difficult to disclose their needs or who feel overwhelmed or daunted by the application process.
You can see the job advert online here and also below.
Details of Role:
‘Listening and a voice for those that speak but are not heard.’
Have you applied for benefit and been stressed out, frustrated, angry or upset by the way the Department for Work & Pensions (DWP) has dealt with your claim? Do you think you could help someone going through that now?
If so, then we want to hear from you!
We're looking for people who have lived experience of the benefits system or supporting others with this and/or other welfare-related issues, such as housing or immigration. Our volunteers help clients 1:1 with disability benefit forms.
In this role, you will use your lived experience to show empathy and build trust with clients who may find it difficult to disclose their needs or who feel overwhelmed or daunted by the application process. By doing so, you will help challenge discrimination against protected groups, including the disabled, black and minority ethnic clients, those that speak English as a second language, lone parents and carers.
How to apply
See how to apply below.
Training
Volunteers are closely supervised by our welfare benefits adviser and are always given ‘on the job’, practical training about the role, including the chance to observe advisers. We also give formal training: interview skills, boundaries for working with clients, effective case recording, PIP form best practice, Motivational Interviewing. Other external training would be looked at positively for any volunteer who requested it. All volunteers have access to benefit handbooks and a wide range of other advice resources.
Location/time
You will work from our office in St Paul's one day per week, during office hours.
Closing Date:
Tuesday, 12 April, 2022 - 17:00
How to Apply:
To apply, tell us the answer to the following questions:
What is your lived experience of the benefits/welfare system?
Describe a situation where you have helped someone explain something that they found it difficult to express.
You can tell us your answers by emailing advocato@stpaulsadvice.org.uk or calling 0117 955 2981 and leaving a message. Anyone who gives a satisfactory answer to these questions will be offered an interview, for which questions will be given in advance.
If you'd like to discuss the role before applying, leave us a message asking to speak to our Advocato Manager about the volunteer role.
