Volunteer Advisers (Dungannon)

Citizens Advice Mid Ulster services are available to everyone regardless of race, gender, sexuality, age, nationality, disability or religion. Volunteers who give advice to our clients are at the heart of our service.  Examples of what advisers do includes some or all of the following:

• finding out the key points of a clients problem
• finding out what a clients problem is and helping them understand self-help information so the client can act for themselves
• helping a client with debts to work out a reasonable rate of repayment and supporting them to negotiate this with creditors
• interviewing a homeless client to find out what their housing options are and helping the client decide their next steps
• interviewing a client that has been sacked and finding out whether they have lost their job unfairly or not.

To volunteer for Citizens Advice, with a view to eventually becoming an Adviser, you would need:

• an ability to understand complex information
• to be polite and good at listening
• have a good telephone manner 
• to be familiar with using keyboard skills and searching the Internet
• to be able to input data accurately 
• a good level of literacy and numeracy 
• to be open minded and not judge clients
• to enjoy helping people.

Volunteer advisers receive full training in the skills needed to help people deal with their problems and learn how to find the information the client needs.  Volunteers are supported and supervised as they begin to give advice and will get feedback and development opportunities throughout their time with Citizens Advice.  A minimum time commitment of 1 days per week would be required initially.  During training, volunteers will need to attend training in Belfast, 1 day per week, for up to 16 weeks.  At the end of the training, each volunteer will have an OCN Level 3 qualification. Volunteers who can commit to more than 1 day per week are also very welcome to apply.