Volunteer With Us

Volunteering with A Listening Ear is a rewarding opportunity that supports our service users and also offers you a range of benefits, from personal satisfaction and expanded social networks, to experience and enhanced skills that could boost your career.

Select the role you are interested in below for more information about that volunteering opportunity with us.

Our Volunteers are the core of our service, allowing us to carry out our mission and to realise our values in everything that we do.

Volunteer Befriender

Befrienders deliver ALE’s service in a variety of ways.

Telephone and/or online: Befrienders contact matched service users at home at agreed, mutually convenient times, usually for around 30 minutes each week.

Face-to-face: Befrienders and service users meet at local cafés for a catch-up, or Befrienders participate in our Friendly Cup drop-in events.

Care home: Befrienders visit service users in their care homes at agreed, mutually convenient times, usually for around 30 minutes each week.

Befrienders listen to and chat with our service users. During conversations, where appropriate and possible, they identify additional services that might bring benefit, such as FoodTrain or The Talking Newspaper, and signpost to relevant support.

Desirable skills and qualities:

• A good knowledge of the local community and opportunities, community spaces, and activities.
• A nature that is respectful, caring, and non-judgemental.
• Good communication skills, including active and considerate listening.
• Reliable and able to make and stick to agreed time commitments.
• Able to maintain confidentiality.
  
  

See our Role Description: Volunteer Befriender for more details.

Trustees are our ‘guardians of purpose’, governing our work in accordance with our Constitution and Strategic Plan 2022–27 and in consultation with our members, volunteer befrienders, staff, and wider community.

At all times, trustees act in the charity’s best interests, promote its success, and safeguard its good name and values. They ensure that we pursue our charitable purpose (using our resources exclusively for that purpose) and ensure our financial viability and sustainability. The duties usually take around two hours per month plus a Board of Trustees meeting every two months and occasional away days or supplementary meetings. Further contributions of time for working groups are welcome.

Desirable skills and qualities:

• Commitment to our charitable purpose and activities and the ability to place the charity’s needs before personal interests.
• Commitment to the Seven Principles of Public Life: Selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty, leadership.
• Willingness to actively contribute to team working, constructive discussion, decision-making and planning.
• Experience of working in the third sector.
• Good listening, communication, organisation, and numeracy skills.
• Willingness to learn or develop knowledge and skills in at least one of the following: Finance, fundraising or business development, human resources, safeguarding.

See our Role Description: Volunteer Trustee for more details.