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WHAT WE ASK OF OUR VOLUNTEERS:
- EMPATHY
- You don’t need to be a survivor of abuse yourself to volunteer for NAPAC. What you do need is the willingness to understand and engage with the sometimes disturbing and traumatic experiences of our callers.
- RESILIENCE
- Supporting adult survivors of childhood abuse can be challenging. That’s why our volunteers need strong self-awareness, know how to ask and seek support and to be in the right place in their life to be able to support others.
- COMMITMENT
- We invest in our volunteers through intensive training. Once you have completed this training, you’ll do a four-hour shift every week for at least a year with our team in Stockport.
WHY VOLUNTEER AT NAPAC:
You could make a real difference to someone’s life.
• One in seven callers to our national support line are
telling someone for the first time about the abuse
they suffered.
• Each and every call is different and you need to be
prepared to listen without judging.
• You need empathy, resilience and to commit to a
regular four-hour shift.
• You’ll receive extensive training, so you’re ready to
take calls with our support line team in Stockport.
• We look after our volunteers through our model of live
supervision and support. This is part of what makes
volunteering at NAPAC special – you’ll be part of a
warm, encouraging and empathetic team.
GET IN TOUCH:
sam.booth@napac.org.uk
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WHAT TO EXPECT
NAPAC was set up to support adults who are struggling to cope with the long-term consequences of any type of abuse or neglect.
So, on our telephone support line we hear from all sorts of people from all different backgrounds with all types of life experiences.
Each and every call is different, and you need to be prepared to listen without judging. One in seven callers to our support line are telling someone for the first time in their lives about what they suffered in childhood.
WHAT TRAINING IS INVOLVED:
In order to support survivors successfully, our volunteers need to have strong self-awareness, great active listening skills, and the ability to communicate in a way that is empowering to the caller.
To achieve this, we invest time and resources in providing excellent training to our prospective volunteers. This training takes place in Stockport over six weeks, in two-and-a-half hour sessions on the same evening every week. During this training, you will be introduced to the evidence base around childhood abuse, to the unique model that NAPAC works within and to the skills and tools you will be using on our national telephone support line, which is based in Stockport.
Following the training, prospective volunteers will undergo a period of ‘shadowing’ on the support line, learning from staff and more experienced volunteers. After this, when the time is right, you will go on the support line as a full volunteer.
We have to make sure that this volunteer role is right for you and that you are right for the role. That means that not all applications to become a volunteer are successful, or that everyone who goes through the training or shadowing will automatically become a full volunteer.
NAPAC also understands that this work can have a major emotional impact, so we take our duty of care to look after our volunteers very seriously through our model of live supervision and support. This is part of what makes volunteering at NAPAC special – you’re truly part of a warm, encouraging and empathetic environment.
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