Volunteering Opportunities
Volunteer work placements wanted for our Helpline Service
We currently have 52 regular volunteers with legal or medical backgrounds who have found the experience to be extremely helpful when dealing with clients back at their place of work. Being based at our Croydon office volunteers have also enjoyed getting to know the AvMA staff and more about the organisation as a whole, with many volunteering far longer than anticipated.
We currently have a handful of sessions available; therefore we are inviting short term work placements to volunteer for our helpline. Volunteer sessions are on a Rota system and each volunteer has an allocated 1 ½ or 2 hour session either once a week, fortnightly or once every 4 weeks. Based at either our Croydon office or our Manchester base.
Volunteering for the helpline can provide greater awareness of the Complaints System and help to gain a clearer understanding of the clients' perspective. A training programme will be tailored to meet the volunteers' needs which would include modules on Complaints Procedures, AvMA's core induction programme. Opportunities are available to get involved with research projects and written casework.
If you are a qualified Solicitor, trainee solicitor, Barrister or medically qualified we would like to hear from you. Unfortunately we are unable to take students at this present time but this may change in the future.
Please contact Gillian Savage, Helpline Development Officer.
Email: support@avma.org.uk or Tel: 020 8688 9555 for further information. Or download an application form here and for the role description click here
Our Helpline base in Manchester!
Due to ongoing evaluation of the helpline it was discovered that there was a marked difference in the number of calls from the northern areas of the UK - there may be several explanations for this but we felt, strongly, that this discrepancy should be addressed.
We have been extremely successful in establishing an extension to the helpline service in Manchester since March 2008 With the wonders of technology the calls are geographically routed to either our Croydon office or the Manchester base. Steven Liddiard, Senior Advice Worker, manages and coordinates this part of the service and is assisted by volunteers, who have kindly given their time to help. There is a range of skills from medical to legal in this group of volunteers and it may be ideal experience for those on the LPC or trainee solicitors/barristers. This expansion of the helpline has also enabled volunteers who wanted to donate their time but could not travel as far as Croydon to still help us.
Steven currently has 27 volunteers but is always on the look out for more! If you can spare the time to help and would like to do this from the Manchester base please contact:
Steven Liddiard, Senior Caseworker/NW Helpline Co-ordinator
Email: steven@avma.org.uk or Tel: 0161 819 6858 for further information. Or download an application form click here and for the role description click here
Office Volunteers
There are lots of areas within the organisation that could benefit from your time and experience. The sorts of roles which volunteers are currently involved in include: providing admin support, researching and gathering information. Our office volunteers bring with them a vast range of skills and experience. So if you have some time to give and fancy being an office volunteer, we would love to hear from you.
To apply to become a volunteer please complete the online application form here and return it, along with an up-to-date C.V. to Colin Bryan at office@avma.org.uk
