Research and Campaigns Volunteer

Research and Campaigns Volunteer Position

Location: Citizens Advice Elmbridge West offices with hybrid work from home option

Hours: Approximately 3- 5 hrs/week. We can however be flexible about the time you volunteer so come and talk to us.

Citizens Advice is the largest advice provider in the UK. By joining us you become part of a highly respected advice network dedicated to working to improve the lives of people in our community.

We are looking for a passionate and energetic individual to join us as a Research and Campaigns Volunteer.

Our team is looking for someone to help drive forward our Research and Campaigns Strategy, support our Trustees, internal teams, and play a role in local, regional and national research and campaigning activities alongside our wider Citizens Advice colleagues.

Research and Campaigns at Citizens Advice

As a service, we hold a huge amount of insight and data about the problems our clients and their wider communities face.

We can use this insight and data to do several things:

• to help us understand our community better and support it appropriately.
• to influence decision-makers to change policies and practices.
• to campaign to get decision-makers to change policies and practices.

What will you do:

• Complete an introduction to Citizens Advice and training for your role.
• Provide support and guidance to advisers to enable them to identify suitable cases for research and campaign work.
• Undertake research and collect relevant data.
• Help analyse completed Evidence Forms to identify patterns or trends that may require further research and/or campaign action.
• Help give feedback to advisers and managers on completed Evidence Forms.
• Stay abreast of key local and national research and campaign/social policy work.
• Participate in local and national research and campaigns.
• Contribute to the maintenance of our research and campaign records.
• Review the effectiveness of existing research and campaign work.
• Identify new research and campaign initiatives based on local intelligence.
•  Make a real difference to people’s lives.
•  Learn about a range of areas such as benefits, debt, and housing, and how problems in these areas can affect clients.
• Build on valuable skills such as communication, research, campaigns, how to engage with a range of audiences and working with clients.
•  Increase your employability.
• Have a positive impact in your community and on broader society.
• We’ll reimburse expenses too.

You don’t need specific qualifications or skills, but you’ll need to:

• Be friendly and approachable.
• Respect views, values and cultures that are different to your own.
• Have excellent verbal and written communication skills.
• Be able to understand complex information and explain it (verbally and writing) so that others understand it.
• Have a positive attitude towards research and campaigns, keeping up to date with current issues, and sharing your knowledge.
• Have good IT skills.
• Be willing to learn about and follow the Citizens Advice aims, principles and policies, including confidentiality and data protection.
• Be willing to undertake training in your role.

Valuing Inclusion
Our volunteers come from a range of backgrounds, and we welcome applications from disabled people, people with physical or mental health conditions, LGBTQ+, non-binary people, and people from Black Asian Minority Ethnic (BAME) communities. If you are interested in a research and campaigns volunteer role and would like to discuss flexibility around location, time, ‘what you will do’ and how we can support you please contact us.

If you are interested in this voluntary role, please submit and expression of interest using this link.