Crosspoint, a community support organisation in Westbury, is seeking volunteers to join their team. With the growing complexity of issues faced by local residents, especially since Covid, the demand for Crosspoint’s services has increased significantly.
Volunteering at Crosspoint involves more than offering ‘tea and sympathy.’ If you are patient, have basic computer skills, and are willing to listen to clients and help them navigate their options, this role could be incredibly rewarding. Crosspoint operates four half-days a week, providing drop-in sessions where clients present a wide range of issues. Volunteers handle everything from helping clients complete forms to making phone calls to service providers and conducting research on government websites.
Recent examples of volunteer work include assisting a long-term carer in creating a CV and uploading it to a recruitment site, helping a client transfer contact details on a new mobile phone and guiding a recently redundant client through the process of claiming Universal Credit and applying for a single person’s discount on Council Tax. Another volunteer helped a client understand the appeals process for a free bus pass application, while another assisted a client in completing a Personal Independence Payment application after being diagnosed with health issues.
Crosspoint chair, Kevin Fairman said, “The issues that clients bring to drop-in sessions are varied. Our volunteer team come from equally wide backgrounds and have a variety of experiences. The process is to talk to the client and ensure an understanding of the issue, use IT skills to carry out the necessary research and then explain the possible ways forward to the client. The client must then decide what they want to do, and as volunteers, we help them to achieve their chosen outcome.
“It’s an incredibly rewarding role. Clients are struggling to know how to move ahead with their specific problem, and in the majority of cases they leave Crosspoint having found a resolution, and with a weight lifted from their shoulders.”
A volunteer for Crosspoint said, “Volunteering at Crosspoint gives you the opportunity to meet some different people and feel like you are making a difference in their lives. This is a good way to feel like you are serving our local community here in Westbury and the surrounding villages.”
Another said, “I really enjoy it because every shift is different – you never know who is going to come through the door and what help they might need.”
For more information on Crosspoint and volunteering, email info@crosspoint-westbury.co.uk or call 01373 824330.
