Giving advice

Volunteers who give advice to our clients are at the heart of our service and we could not manage without them. Volunteer advisers receive full training in the skills needed to help people deal with their issues and learn how to find the information the client needs from our extensive database. Volunteers are supported and supervised as they begin to give advice and will get feedback and development opportunities throughout their time with Citizens Advice. There are a variety of roles and tasks up to giving full advice. Advisers do some or all of this:

finding out the key details of a client’s problem
determining what a client’s problem is and helping them access self-help information so the client can sort out their issue/s
helping a client with debts to work out a reasonable rate of repayment and supporting them to negotiate this with their creditors
interviewing a homeless client to find out what their housing options are and helping the client decide their next steps
interviewing a client who has been dismissed and finding out whether they have lost their job unfairly or not.

You don’t need specific qualifications or experience to train for the role. You’ll need:

to enjoy helping people
an ability to understand complex information
to be polite and good at listening
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

Please note: If you’re a law student and you train as a Citizens Advice adviser, you can get up to six months off your solicitor training contract!