Frequently asked questions
This information will answer some of the questions you may have about volunteering with Citizens Advice Bucks.
Our volunteers are ordinary people from all walks of life and cover a number of different volunteer roles.
The majority or our volunteers are enquiry and generalist advisers who help us to deliver free, confidential, impartial and independent advice and information on a wide range of subjects to Buckinghamshire residents.
We also have a number of admin roles available. These roles include helping with the smooth running of our charity and can include office admin, volunteer management, client work and help with maintaining our premises and health and safety. These roles can either be back office or include some front of office reception work if you are happy to do this.
Other volunteers come to us because they have a particular skill they would like to put to good use. For example IT, research, fundraising, web design or social media marketing. Some volunteers prefer the social side of volunteering and support us at events where we meet the public and raise awareness of our services and relevant issues. Whoever you are, and whatever your passion, we might have a role for you so please do get in touch using our contact form or call our training team on 01494 328121. If you are interested in an admin role you can call Advice Services Administrator on 01494 328129
We generally recruit volunteers to help us deliver our advice service, helping the most vulnerable residence of Buckinghamshire get the advice and help they need. This means you would be acting as the first point of contact for clients. In this role you would give initial advice to clients around benefits, debt, housing, employment or consumer issues. We do also cover other areas but those are our top 5.
If this doesn’t appeal to you, but you think your time and skills would be of value to the service, then please do get in touch as there may be other opportunities to get involved.
For instance we would love to hear from anyone who likes presenting/acting and would be happy to volunteer some time to help create some advice videos.
Not at all. We are looking for ordinary, approachable and friendly people who are non-judgemental and are empathetic to the needs and issues of our clients. If you can do that and dedicate some time- we would love to hear from you.
Our volunteers undertake a minimum of 6 hours per week. However, during the initial training for advice roles we require at least 12 hours for the first 4 months – in combination of group training, observations in the office and self-study.
This is different for other roles so if you are interested in supporting us with admin or something else please do get in touch so we can talk about time requirements a bit more with you.
All shifts are carried out between the hours of 9.00am – 5.00 pm, Monday to Friday, however we are more than willing to be flexible around start and finish times where people have caring/childcare responsibilities. We can also work with school holidays.
We don’t currently operate any services during evenings or weekends. We ask that volunteers commit to a minimum period of six (6) months.
When we have volunteer vacancies, we will post them on our website along with a link to our (basic) expression of interest form. If we are not currently recruiting, we will have a link to our mailing list which you can sign up to in order to be notified of any vacancies.
You will be sent our application form to fill in. Also, you will have an option to have an informal chat with the training team before filling in the application form (if you wish). Please call 01494 328121 to find out more about our roles and the training process. If you are interested in an admin role you can call Advice Services Administrator on 01494 328129. After your application form is received, our training team will get in touch with you to let you know about the next stage. For advice roles, there will be an exercise – an audio file, a link to the relevant part of our website and a list of questions for you to answer. The answers do not have to be perfect – as full training will be provided. This will give you a good idea of what kind of enquiries our advisers are dealing with.
Yes, but the interview itself will be relatively informal and you will have the opportunity to ask questions.
Our training is pretty extensive but also interesting and geared towards helping you be as successful as possible in your role. With a mix of group online and face to face training, shadowing experienced advisers and E-learning/self-study.
Throughout your training, you will be supported by your supervisor and our Training and Volunteer Manager.
Well, we obviously think it is amazing. The work you will be doing is hugely beneficial to people from the community. But don’t take our word for it- you can read about Wayne’s experience here.
Of course! Citizens Advice Bucks practices and promotes equality of opportunity in volunteering. That means we make sure that all potential volunteers will be welcomed.
We strive to meet any additional needs of disabled staff. If you have a disability that might prevent you from fully participating in our recruitment process, please let us know in your application and we will endeavour to make reasonable adjustments to ensure your comfort.
If you are confident that you can meet the time commitment, are non-judgemental and reliable and you would like to be considered for a role, please complete our online expression of interest form. We aim to acknowledge all enquiries within 48 (working) hours but please note that this may take longer during busy periods.
