Volunteer Information

Advocacy Services volunteers undertake about half of our casework each year; without them we could not see as many clients as we do. Our volunteers give us more flexibility, skills and experience than we could hope to provide with four paid staff.

If you are interested in volunteering with The Care Forum in another capacity, for instance in admin, please use the enquiry form and we will get in touch with you to discuss what may be possible.

What do volunteer advocates do?

Volunteers are all trained to provide advocacy for clients from both of our projects. This means that they:

• meet with clients to find out what they need support with
• write formal letters with clients
• attend meetings to offer morale and practical support to their client
• research and explain information for their client
• keep in touch with their client by phone or e-mail until the completion of their advocacy issue.

Please click here for more information about what volunteers do with Advocacy Services.

Volunteer Profile

"I applied to go on the volunteer advocate training with Advocacy Services and Bristol Mind in September 2003. I enjoyed the course, which was of a high quality, both because of the content and the friendships made with other trainees.

Apart from enjoying my advocacy work, I also did some voluntary work in the office, which was formalised into a successful work placement. This provided an ideal stepping-stone for me to return to full-time permanent employment. Although my time is more limited now, I still enjoy doing advocacy work for Advocacy Services. As soon as you walk through the doors of The Care Forum a calm, professional and business-like atmosphere is apparent. They struck me as being a very well organised and professionally run organisation. I have greatly benefited from the experience of volunteering and thoroughly recommend it."

Neil Fry, Volunteer Advocate

What support does Advocacy Services offer to volunteers?

We believe that volunteer advocates need our full support to fulfil their role as well as they can. Therefore, we offer:

• training
• group and telephone supervision
• expenses
• monthly newsletter

Volunteer training

Some of our volunteers have been with us for up to ten years. However, it is part of natural life that volunteers come and go with the ebb and flow of life changes. Therefore, we run a training programme for a new intake of volunteers about every nine months.

A typical course will cover all you need to know to volunteer with Advocacy Services, including:

• basic advocacy skills
• mental health awareness
• equal opportunities
• letter writing
• meeting skills
• Social Services Complaints procedure

We plan to run our next training programme in 2009.

If you are interested in volunteering

Please click here to download an application form and role description. You can also contact the Volunteer Development Worker to discuss the volunteer work.