Advice Volunteer

Advice Volunteer - Job Spec

What will you do?

  • complete an introduction to Citizens Advice and training for your role, ideally completed in 8 weeks
  • talk to clients over the phone, face to face, or online to explore what problems they need 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 phonecalls, or referring the client to another organisation
  • write a summary of the clients’ problems and what action you’ve taken using a computerised database
  • 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

  • help clients with debts, work out a reasonable amount to pay back, and make a phonecall 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.

  • 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.

And we’ll reimburse expenses too.

If you’re training to be a solicitor and you train and volunteer as a local Citizens Advice adviser, you may be able to get up to six months off your solicitor training contract. See Solicitors Regulation Authority for more information.

You don’t need specific qualifications or skills but you’ll need to:

  • be friendly and approachable
  • be non-judgmental and respect views, values and cultures that are different to your own
  • have good listening skills
  • have excellent verbal and written communication skills
  • have good maths and IT skills
  • be able to understand 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
  • be willing to undertake training in your role

We ask for 6 hours per week which can be, ideally, over one day or spread over two days, for at least 12 months. We can be flexible so come and talk to us.

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.

If you are interested in becoming an adviser and would like to discuss flexibility around location, time, ‘what you will do’ and how we can support you please contact us. We look forward to hearing from you.

Contact details

Applying for Advice Volunteer

Please use our general application form to apply for all posts.

The application form has to be completed in one go. We recommend you compile some of the answers in a word processor first and paste them into the application from for your convenience.

A PDF version of the application can be viewed below to enable you to gather all the information you need before you complete and submit the Application Form itself. Please do not apply using the pdf.

Don’t forget to complete our anonymous Equal Opportunities monitoring form as well.

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Anyone from across Monmouthshire can speak to one of our advisers at a community drop-in session, by telephone, email and in-person by appointment at our Pontypool office or one of our outreaches.

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Volunteer Jobs

Need help?

Anyone from across Monmouthshire can speak to one of our advisers at a community drop-in session, by telephone, email and in-person by appointment at our Pontypool office or one of our outreaches.

Reports

Impact reports

See what impact we have made directly for the people of Monmouthshire.

Reports