Volunteer for VoiceAbility in Edinburgh, City of Edinburgh

Support Session Volunteers help our clients with general advocacy, supporting people with a variety of challenges. This helps us to support more individuals by:

1. Helping clients understand about advocacy;
2. Supporting clients to self-advocate with our tool kits;
3. Signposting clients to other services where required;
4. 1:1 casework;
5. Supporting the service to deliver “collective” advocacy;
6. Keeping detailed records of casework;
7. Promotion of services through events and community engagement.

About VoiceAbility

We’ve been supporting people to be heard in decisions about their health, care and wellbeing for over 40 years. We’re an independent charity and one of the UK’s largest providers of advocacy and involvement services.

Experience Required

Good communication skills – written and verbal. Empathy and patience when dealing with clients. A knowledge of, or interest in, advocacy. A knowledge of Microsoft Office, including Word, Excel & Outlook or the ability and willingness to learn about the software. Accuracy and attention to detail.

Training

Volunteers receive a mixture of Instructor-Led Training on Microsoft Teams and e-learning modules to complete in their own time. Training is comprehensive and covers topics such as: introduction to VoiceAbility, what is advocacy, boundaries, confidentiality, safeguarding, how to network effectively, and more!

Flexibility & Commitment

Home-Based Volunteering; Flexible

2-3 hours per week, 6 months.

We do not have an office base, so support can be delivered to clients at their homes, in the local community or remotely through the use of IT at the volunteer's home address. You will have to be able to travel throughout Edinburgh through your own means. The opportunity is open to people with disabilities, but we cannot always ensure accessible facilities since it is community and home based. Our service operates Monday-Friday 9am-5pm, so that is when volunteering hours are available to ensure volunteers are fully supported.

Expenses

Personal and bank details are given to our finance team so they can set up the process. An expenses form must be submitted to the volunteer coordinator for approval, who then forwards this on to the finance team to process.

Accessibility Details

• Happy to have a conversation about volunteer’s needs.