Volunteer with us

Citizens Advice Kensington and Chelsea is a volunteer-led organisation. This means that we put voluntary staff at the heart of everything we do. Our voluntary staff see and support the majority of our clients and we could not achieve our mission without them. That’s why we make the commitment to give our voluntary staff a first-class volunteering experience: including providing them with support through our rigorous and nationally recognised training programme, and ensuring their commitment is rewarded through exciting social events and community activities.

You can learn more about our volunteer opportunities by reading further on this page or contact us at volunteer@citizensadvicekc.org.uk.

To start your volunteer journey please click the yellow ‘sign me up’ button below and complete our short, easy online application form now!

Get to know us!

We understand that devoting time to volunteering can be a big commitment. That’s why we encourage anyone who is interested in volunteering with us to come and meet us before putting in an application. You can find the days and details of our volunteer drop-ins below:

  • Location: Chelsea Old Town Hall (entrance via Chelsea Manor Gardens)

    Time: 16:00 - 16:30.

Complete our training and get qualified

You’ll have the opportunity to take part in a range of learning opportunities with us including online self-study, shadowing our advice team, and participating in a range of workshops too. You’ll also get to practice what you’ve learned with real clients! Those volunteers who complete our training can get nationally recognised certifications for help in your future career or simply for the satisfaction of building your knowledge and skills.

Join our community

Citizens Advice Kensington and Chelsea, you’ll become part of active and friendly community of people who want to improve the lives of residents in Kensington and Chelsea while making friendships that can last a lifetime. We host regular events where we come together to raise money, get to know each other and say “thank you” for the time our volunteers give to us. Recent trips include visits to Kensington Palace and taking part in various fundraising walks in the glorious summer sunshine!

Our volunteering pathways

Pathway 1: Finding your role

Our first pathway is an open, flexible route through volunteering. There is no time scale or expectation on how quickly you progress, and you may even decide that volunteering in our entry role - Client Support - is the one for you. If you see other roles you like, such as a Pathfinder or Adviser, then we will discuss with you the training required over time.

Minimum commitment: 1 day per week for at least 6 months.

Speed of training:

  • At your own pace.

Pathway 2: Advice Training

Our second pathway is challenging but rewarding training programme that will see you quickly pass through our Client Support training and onto our Pathfinder training. Through a combination of self-study and face-to-face training, we’ll support you to learn about all of our advice areas so that you can quickly help to triage and signpost clients to information. Eventually, you will train as an Adviser, being able to provide advice and guidance to clients.

Minimum commitment: 2 days per week for at least 1 year.

Speed of training:

  • 12 weeks (to Pathfinder competence)

  • Additional 12 weeks (to Adviser competence)

Client Support Officer

As a Client Support Officer you will make an instant impact and become an essential part of our team. All of our volunteers start their volunteer journey with us in this role, even if it is for a short time while completing some initial advice training.

What does a Client Support Officer do?

  • Be the friendly face of our service in the community: You will welcome clients at our office and outreach locations, and provide them with a warm, supportive environment in which to share details of their issues.

  • Help clients to understand our service: With a thorough understanding of how our service works, you will help clients to understand what we do and how we can help them.

  • Collect initial information for our advice team: You will have a short initial conversation with our clients to find out about their issue and also help carry out administrative duties to start the client journey.

Our Client Support Training

  • Develop your client interaction and communications skills by taking our training on supporting clients not fluent in English, overcoming problems with clients, and being able to identify things like safeguarding risks.

  • Build an understanding of our main enquiry areas and legal frameworks to so you can speak confidently with clients about how we can help them or what other services they can access.

  • You will gain an appreciation of the importance of creating accurate case records and how we ensure the quality of our advice across our services.

  • Our training programme will get your involved across our offices and outreaches from the very early stages so that you can get the unbeatable feeling of doing something great for your community.

Pathfinder

Pathfinders are at the heart of an excellent client journey, helping clients to determine what information or advice they need, and helping to access that support either within Citizens Advice, other specialist advice agencies or through local community organisations. It’s a crucial step towards becoming an adviser if that is your ultimate goal.

What does a Pathfinder do?

  • Explore the client’s situation: You will be the first person to triage the client and make an assessment of their needs. You will consider what resources they client will need to move forward with their issue.

  • Help the client understand their options: You’ll seek to tailor your guidance according to the client’s capability and needs. For example, they may be able to self-help with internet resources, or if they are vulnerable they may need help fulfilling a referral process.

  • Promote the full range of local support to clients: You will keep an ear to the ground for new referral pathways, both locally and nationally, and for new resources so that clients receive the best, up-to-date information about what support is available to them.

Our Pathfinder Training

  • Start your advice training journey on our Adviceline, where you can speak to real clients without the pressure of face-to-face contact, and have a supervisor on-hand so you can ask any questions.

  • You will develop an understanding of our main enquiry areas, such as benefits, housing or debt. This will allow you to understand what the client's issue is and what kind of support they may need.

  • You will write up a record of your conversation with clients so that when they have an appointment with or speak to an adviser the adviser will know the issues that need to be addressed.

  • You'll gain familiarity with our Signposting Index, and internal resource that shows you all of the local, regional and national resources that can support clients with their issues.

Adviser

Some of our volunteers progress to work with us as Advisers. In this role, you will be the friendly and informed person who outlines to clients the range of options available to resolve their problem. In some cases you will even need to take action on behalf of the client to help them to resolve their particular issue.

What does an Adviser do?

  • Discuss available advice options: You will take the information provided by the client at triage and explore the range of available advice options with them. You’ll explain the best outcomes available to them and the steps they need to take to resolve their issue.

  • Develop your knowledge of our core areas of advice: You’ll engage with our team and training resources to ensure your knowledge of welfare benefits, housing and debt are up-to-date and applicable to clients’ situations. You’ll also develop knowledge of employment, family and immigration issues amongst other things.

  • Occasionally take action on behalf of a client: While taking action on a client’s behalf is generally reserved for our more vulnerable clients, from time to time you may need to advocate on behalf of your client both verbally or in writing. You’ll be supported by our supervisory team to make sure we know what steps the organisation has taken on behalf of clients.

Our Adviser Training

  • You will take booked appointments with clients, where the issues to be addressed are clearly outlined before the appointment. This will give you the chance to research and prepare in advance.

  • You will join in on training sessions from both internal and external sources. In recent times, we have had training with Shelter on homelessness issues, and training on supporting clients with mental health issues from local NHS services.

  • In addition to our core areas, you'll learn about certain areas of expertise, including things like energy advice - a very specific area of advice that explores how to 'go greener' and be more energy efficient.

  • You'll learn to show the impact of your work through recording outcomes of our advice sessions. These are both monetary and non-monetary, but show the real impact on our clients for our funders.