Does anyone volunteer for the CAB?

[NaturalHabitat]

I am thinking about becoming a CAB volunteer, either as an advisor or maybe working with their witness service. Does anyone here do either roles? Can you tell me a bit about it (what you like, what you don't like, the level of commitment, hours etc etc). Thanks.

I was an advisor for 5 years though I left in 2017 so my knowledge is probably a bit old now.

There's a fair amount of training to get through before you're fully qualified so a certain level of commitment is required in return. Most people have set working days and you'll generally have a diary of booked appointments so have to honour those otherwise you're letting clients down.

It's basically like a job, you'll get supervision, appraisals, cpd, feedback on quality of advice etc

Good bits: Sense of achievement, I enjoyed working with the clients and hearing their stories. I was a SAHM at the time and it kept my professional skills up to date and gave me something to put on my CV/references etc .

Bad bits: There's a limit to what you can do for clients, sometimes it felt like it would be more valuable to operate more like a support worker. I did get bored after 5 years but I didn't really want to progress further at the CAB, eg into a paid role, as my career direction was elsewhere.

Another one of the reasons I left was, at the time, there was a big push to telephone advice which meant working in a call centre type of arrangement. I hated that and wasn't prepared to give up my free time and work for free in a call centre (with monitored breaks, call times etc )

Bear in mind that the CAB runs almost like a franchise. Each branch is a separate entity and will have difference conventions and ways of working so your local branch could be very different.

Thank you - that's really interesting. I agree I'm not sure I'd like to do the call centre thing. I want to work with people directly, face-to-face so the witness service option appeals more than the advisor role.

I used to volunteer through work so didn’t have much training but the call centre monitoring was ridiculous. When far more experienced people than you could ever hope to even dream of hiring, are working for you for free you don’t monitor their ‘comfort breaks’.

Hmmm. That's interesting. Good to know so I can ask about that during training.

Agree Grumpy. For me it was hearing the supervisor quiz a very experienced advisor on why she had been logged out for so long over one shift. She had been doing some research for a client and made herself unavailable for calls. I was a bit that she was being made to account for herself that way.

After that I just refused to go onto the phones.

I am a current volunteer adviser.

It’s a big commitment which you need to take on like a paid role. Classroom Training takes around 9 months then you see clients supervised for a while until you are deemed ready to “fly solo”.

It can take an emotional toll (especially this past year - some situations people contact us about are heartbreaking) so you need to think about whether you’d cope with that.

You need to be able to offer a regular attendance to fit in a rota with other advisers, and be good at writing reports of meetings, and summarising the advice you have given. You may need to do some difficult research so you need to be able to do this and take on board sometimes complex issues and then explain them to clients who often will not have those skills (trying to be polite).

Lastly and perhaps most importantly you need to be non judgmental. Many clients lead chaotic lives and have made choices that are questionable. They may come from a wide range of ethnicities and backgrounds. Some may not speak much English. You need to deal with all clients with equal good manners and professionalism.

Hope that helps! I love it, it’s incredibly rewarding.

Have just read the points about taking calls.

For a year or so advice has ONLY been in the phones - prior to this I spent one of my 2 weekly shifts doing calls (as opposed to face to face) by choice. Cit A did a great job setting up the relevant tech to enable us to work from home in quick time last year.

I’ve never been monitored in terms of time for breaks etc so I’m incredibly surprised to hear those comments. It goes to the point a previous person made that each “branch” runs independently with different approaches.

I am a trustee for our local Citizens Advice.

I think the experience in each office is going to be very different (due to location and demographics). Some clients can be dealt with/signposted in 10 minutes, others require many hours of help.

Please do get in touch with your local office. We've certainly had a big 'recruitment drive' to replace the volunteers struggling with the tech of remote working or having to help out with childcare. Be honest about how many hours/week you can commit and for how long. If you are between jobs and want some extra experience on your CV that's fine, but they will probably find you a role requiring less training.

Good luck.

Re the telephones (a personal bugbear) an astonishingly large number of volunteers would forget to log back in as "available" after writing up. That's probably why the supervisor was querying the prolonged "unavailability". Some are more tactful than others (and mindful that there team is helping out for free).

I think our teams do 2 hour phone shifts and I am pretty certain we don't monitor breaks.

I work as an adviser in a paid role funded by a cancer charity. We have volunteers in our team and the training is very good, with a wide variety of roles available from admin, to advising to working on research etc.

I used to work for a CAB in an admin capacity. Admin volunteers were always welcome as they would be the ones helping me in a very busy reception meeting and greeting clients as well as everything else that is done in the background around the advisors. CAB volunteering has lots of different opportunities to get involved, we had an IT volunteer and a financial assistant. There is a big push though for call centre type advice which one was of the reasons I left. Go for it. It will enrich your life and give you a lot of different skills such as empathy and dealing with difficult people and you will meet a wide variety of people who volunteer for a.myriad of reasons.