Be a Helpline or Admin volunteer – to keep us going…
If you would like to apply to be a volunteer for CASCAIDr, whether or not you would also like to be considered for paid advice work, now or later on – please fill in the form below on this page, with your very brief cv details, and click on Submit, once you have provided information concisely addressing how you fulfil the criteria below.
Do not – please – just send in your standard cv – we don’t have the resources to do applicants’ work for them, with all due respect.
We have a wide range of volunteer roles that might appeal and play to your strengths.
One is volunteering to speak to a person over our phone app, for up to one hour, at a convenient time for you, to support the person to fill out CASCAIDr’s basic referral form.
People are likely to be disinclined to fill out our referral form if they are unsure of whether they even HAVE a legal problem. Much of the time they will call in because they need basic advice and information that local authorities should have made available under the Care Act.
Signposting elsewhere will be the role here – within your own comfort zone, in terms of your knowledge and skills.
But where the problem is a public law legal one, matching the person’s problem to the skills of one of our junior caseworkers, will be the role.
Other roles available for volunteers involve supporting the many and varied administrative tasks that any organisation needs to do well, especially allowing for remote working and the impact of the pandemic on continuity between staff.
CASCAIDr has a casework team which operates Monday to Friday 9-5pm. The team members, work, in the main, part time. We ask for a minimum commitment of 8 hours a week from a caseworker which can be spread over up to three days however those days need to be regular in order for us to effectively manage the referrals we are dealing with.
If you click on the link to our form here you will be able to see what admin is needed and roughly how long per week of your time would be appreciated. These are the areas, all of which have a number of tasks within them.
- Social Media and Print/TV/Radio Media
- Fundraising
- Database & Intellectual Property (IP) management
- Website & Information Technology (IT) upkeep
- Legal Expertise to support CASCAIDr
- Legal Writing and Editing (LGO reports, case law reporting etc)
- Freedom of Information (FOI)
If you have skills suited to any of the above tasks, please select the relevant area on the form above as well as completing the one below.
There is guidance available, for all these tasks, but acumen and good communication skills are necessary, and SOME existing awareness of the legal framework for the provision for CHC health and adults’ social care services is necessary too.
This is a great role for a person who thinks they might want to grow into being a paid Case Worker, but isn’t sure, as yet.
Essential mix of knowledge, skills and abilities for the helpline role:
- A demonstrable fascination with law, rights, redress and empowering those who are disempowered
- Reasonable skill and confidence in verbal and written communication
- A demonstrable capacity for managing one’s own time/workload and competing demands
Desirable Skills/Attributes/Experience for the helpline role:
- Empathy and commitment
- Good listening and eliciting skills
- Ability to compare a story with a check list of features, and work through the list
- Concise report writing skills
- Ability to use IT to maximise efficiency
- Some sort of direct experience of the issues facing the type of people who will likely need our advice, support and advocacy
Desirable qualifications and/or likely working backgrounds for the helpline role:
- Experience in social work, social care, health or perhaps housing or benefits services
- Experience in counselling, if coupled with one of the above sets of knowledge….
- A professional qualification such as being a social worker, nurse or occupational therapist may be of use
- A qualification in mental capacity / safeguarding
- Advocacy qualification and / or experience
- CABx experience in welfare related law