Why Volunteer?

Our volunteers come from a range of socioeconomic backgrounds, faiths and ages. Each has their own reason for volunteering including:

• A chance to give back and support those less fortunate
• To share my life experience and skills
• To make a difference
• To gain skills or experience to enable students to progress to a career in support or criminal justice services
• A chance to expand their horizons and meet new people
• To help us fundraise to keep the work going.

Volunteer Mentors

Our volunteer mentors are a key part of our service. Walking alongside people can be key to helping them desist. The work is not easy and can be frustrating at times, but it can also be highly rewarding to see people making changes in their lives.

Volunteer mentors should expect to give around 3 hours a week to the project. This will include one face-to-face meeting a week with a mentee. Meetings tend to be about an hour long and normally take place during the day, early evenings or at weekends. You should be happy to provide additional support by phone outside of the meeting. You will be provided with a dedicated phone for this purpose. Your travel expenses to meetings will be refunded.

You may be asked to visit a person in prison or collect them from the prison gate on the day of release. If you are not able to do this, due to work or family commitments staff will undertake to do this.

The work will mainly involve helping the person develop the motivation to desist as well as helping them with practical issues such as completing referrals for housing, benefits claims, accompanying them to appointments and helping them look for voluntary or paid work. Full training and support is given. You will meet with a staff member once every 6 weeks to review the case and to provide you with individual support. You will also be expected to attend quarterly group support meetings and training.

Read about a volunteer's experience

Other Opportunities

We offer a range of volunteer opportunities including administration, events planning, local fundraising, or supporting Life Works participants in the workshop or on courses.

We will also consider student placements.

Apply to volunteer