Frequently Asked Questions
No contribution is required, but you will appreciate the costs associated with delivering our services and we would hope that if you feel that your organisation benefits from our visits then you would recognise that with a donation from time to time.
Keeping everyone safe whilst delivering our services is of paramount importance.
Our volunteers have important positions of trust, they represent our charity and depending on their roles, they are visiting vulnerable adults and mostly unsupervised; they may also be taking them out.
Therefore you will understand that there are certain steps we have to go through during our recruitment process.
REFERENCES:
As part of your initial application you will be asked to give us the name, address and email address of a referee who has known you well for 5 years. They must not be related and they must be able to respond quickly to a reference request by email.
References are not usually required for volunteers who do not visit and who only have supporting, supervised roles at events; although each role will be assessed on it’s own merits.
DBS CHECK – ENHANCED LEVEL
Once a volunteer has passed our initial assessment, we will initiate a check with the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS). The DBS helps us to make safer recruitment decisions and ensures only suitable people work with vulnerable groups.
Our partners and the homes we visit require our volunteers in these eligible befriending roles to have the DBS Enhanced checks which include a check of the DBS barred lists. This will check whether someone is included on a list of individuals who are unsuitable for working with vulnerable adults.
We will provide you with all the information necessary to process your application. Essentially we will check your identity, submit the application and the written result will be provided to you; we will receive a notice confirming that the check has either been cleared or it has not been cleared.
If it has been cleared we will then work with you on the next stage depending on whether you are a volunteer visitor or driver.
If it has not been cleared we will discuss that with you.
These checks are not required for volunteers who do not visit and who only have supporting, supervised roles at events.
