Job type: Full Time

Role Description

Citizens Advice North East Derbyshire are looking to recruit volunteer advisers based in Clay Cross (near Chesterfield) in an accessible building with plenty of free and accessible parking.

What will you do?

• Complete an introduction to Citizens Advice and training for your role talk to clients over the phone, video call or face to face 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

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.

What do you need to have?

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

How much time do you need to give?

Ideally, we ask for 5 hours per week.

We can be flexible so talk to us if this doesn’t suit.

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 communities.

We particularly welcome applications from disabled and Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic candidates. We also welcome applications from, LGB and Trans and non-binary candidates. We have made a positive commitment to employing

If you are interested in becoming an adviser and would like to discuss flexibility around time, ‘what you will do’ and how we can support you please contact us. In some circumstances there may even be an option for home working.

We’ve learnt from our Community Hub that activity and structure enable people who have been isolated to connect with others. By facilitating others to share their skills and find purpose, we can support people to flourish, and for our community impact to grow. Derbyshire Voluntary Action (DVA) are looking for a number of co-facilitators for the activities we already run, and ideas for new activities if you have a skill to share.

For the groups to function as a positive experience, and feel inclusive and accessible, the group facilitator role is essential. Organizing a collective activity and ensuring that everyone is supporting each other to take part really helps.

Sometimes people can become a little excitable (can’t we all!) and might occasionally need reminding about appropriate language and behaviour. The group facilitator also identifies strengths in others and encourages people to share the responsibility of teaching skills, managing resources, and clearing up after sessions. The more purposeful the session, and linked in with central Hub activities, the more opportunity there is for people to feel motivated to step up, and push themselves outside of their comfort zone to flourish.

Key responsibilities include:

●       Leading an allocated weekly activity: Being at the Hub for the start of a weekly allocated activity to welcome attendees, and staying until everything is cleared up at the end. Making sure attendees feel included in the conversation and activity is key.

●       Joining in with the activities: Where teaching and helping allows, taking part with participants really helps people to feel collective and empowered

●       Escalating concerns to the DVA team: If concerns about behaviour in the group can’t be resolved easily, it’s important that it is escalated to a DVA staff member

●       Staying up to date with Hub Guidance and Procedures : Referring to The Hub Handbook and supporting others to do so also.

●       Managing resources: Our budget for materials and space to store them is quite limited and therefore we try to attract donations and recycled materials where we possibly can.  This requires organization and leadership from the group facilitator.

We are particularly looking for people with an interest and ability to share, related to the group activity. Great communication skills, and a warm and friendly manner are important alongside problem solving skills. We need people who are willing to support diversity and inclusive approaches.