Court Based Volunteer - Portsmouth

As a Witness Service volunteer, you’ll be joining a team of trained staff and volunteers who are committed to supporting witnesses to give their best evidence in court. Some of the things you might be doing include:

Providing information to witnesses when they come to court
Answering questions about how the court system works
Facilitating pre-trial visits and virtual court tours
Supporting witnesses in the run-up to trial (in person or by video or phone)

Working as a volunteer can bring many benefits, including improved wellbeing. You’ll also gain new skills and learn more about the criminal justice system in England and Wales. This is a brilliant opportunity to meet new people and help give something back to the community.

As a Witness Service volunteer, you’ll be working alongside staff and other volunteers who want to help people who have either witnessed or experienced crime. You’ll be supporting them to give their best evidence in court, ensuring their voice is heard and making a positive impact on their lives.

About the Organisation:

Victim Support is an independent charity. We are dedicated to supporting people affected by crime and traumatic incidents in England and Wales, and we put them at the heart of our organisation. Our support and campaigns are informed and shaped by them and their experiences.

We provide specialist services to help people manage after crime and to empower them to ensure their voices are heard individually and collectively at a local and national level.

**Please check your Junk email folder in case any emails end up here, we will be touch with you within a few days by email. Friendly reminder that the charities/organisations emails may end up here too. **

Don't forget you can add up any volunteering hours as part of Team 100 Opportunity - Hive Portsmouth or part of the Donate 100 things challenge Opportunity

Skills

As a volunteer, you’ll be friendly and understanding, and confident in supporting people through an anxious time. You’ll be empathetic, non-judgemental, and have good listening and communication skills. You’ll also be comfortable in supporting people from a wide variety of backgrounds.

You may want to have a think about how much time you’re able to give to volunteering with us. In our court-based roles you’ll need to be able to attend court for one day a week, while our outreach roles are more flexible.

We encourage you to volunteer for at least 12 months to help you to get the most out of the experience and provide some consistency for the victims and witnesses that we support.

We also ask that you’re able to access the internet for communication and online training and have an active email account so we can contact you easily. You should be comfortable using online forms where we collect information to monitor and evaluate the services we provide. You’ll receive full training on any systems that you are asked to use while volunteering with us.