Volunteer Assessor
Becoming a Volunteer Assessor.
What you will be doing
The Assessor role is at the heart of our work in the community. You will deliver initial client advice assessments by telephone and face to face. This involves exploring the issue with the client and then providing information, signposting elsewhere or booking an appointment with an Adviser as appropriate.
- You will triage a client’s issues and identify the appropriate next steps
- You will identify the barriers clients are experiencing
- You will offer different ways of supporting clients based on their capability
- You will use trusted sources (CitizensAdvice Website, Shelter, Gov.UK) to signpost clients.
- You will identify emergencies and help clients prioritise
- You will record client interactions on a secure database
- You will engage with the research and campaigns work we do at Citizens Advice
- You are committed to helping identify and challenge inequity
- You will engage with the training we offer to support your development.
What you will gain from the role
If selected, you will be part of a friendly and supportive team. You will be enrolled in our extensive, comprehensive and certificated Adviser Learning Programme. This is structured and proven to build your abilities and understanding and includes a blend of face-to-face and online learning. You will learn how our service delivery works in practice by shadowing our experienced Assessors as they provide telephone and face-to-face assessments. You will learn our case management system and the other systems and tools which support our work. Encouraging and constructive feedback will be provided to help you develop and hone your skills in doing assessments and writing case notes.
On reaching competence in the Assessor role (which usually takes 6 months of consistent delivery at two days a week), you will obtain a certificate and have the option to move on to train as an Adviser. Adviser training and development is over a longer period with similar competence-based achievement and certification.
What you will bring to the role
You will need to be able to communicate effectively with clients, to manage the conversation, extract the key information, research answers and explain options in a way that will be understood by clients with a range of abilities. This will require clear spoken and written English (while fluency in other languages is appreciated) and accurate online research skills.
You will also need to be able to write objective, succinct case notes that meet our quality standards, to have good typing skills and be confident in learning and using IT applications and the internet.
You will need to be willing and able to follow instructions and act positively on feedback.
What is the time commitment
We ask for you to provide two full days a week of volunteering (although only one is possible). The days for assessors are from 9.30 to 16:30. We are flexible, and if you have other commitments such as caring, university of work, please do let us know, so we can discuss with you how best you could volunteer. However, it will take longer to achieve competence as an Assessor to get your certificate before being able to move on to train as an Adviser on less than 2 days a week.
What is involved in the recruitment process
If you are shortlisted on the basis of the application form, you will be sent a short test to be completed before being invited to interview. Interviews take place online with our Training and Development Manager. If you are successful, and we have received two satisfactory references, we will agree on your start date and your introduction to the role of Assessor and the learning pathway you will follow.
How to apply
If you can see yourself being one of our Assessors, providing advice and guidance, and working towards becoming an Adviser, we’d love to hear from you. Please apply by completing our Volunteer Application Form. If you are shortlisted, you will receive a simple test, and then be invited to interview with our Volunteer Team.
If you have any questions about the form or anything else, please get in touch on volunteer@cahf.org.uk and we’ll be happy to help. Please note, we do routinely check if applications have been written by AI software, so we encourage you to write in your own words in order to explain to us your motivations.
If this role is not for you, please look at the other roles we have available.
Unfortunately we do not pay travel expenses during the recruitment process. If selected, we pay out of pocket travel expenses for attendance at training, induction and regular volunteering. If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.
We delete all information 12 months after receipt unless you have been successful in recruitment, in which case we gain your permission on what is retained and how it is used. There is further information in the volunteer application form.