Volunteer

Help us make a positive difference

Dedicated and caring individuals

We are always looking for dedicated and caring individuals to volunteer their time within various roles across our organisation. 

Work experience placements

Whatever your motivation, we can provide excellent supported work experience placements where you will have the opportunity to develop your skills, knowledge of the industry and understanding of autism. Many of the skills you develop will be useful if you choose to pursue employment in another industry.

Staff training

All of our volunteers are invited to attend our staff training programme and receive regular supervision and support throughout their ongoing placements. You will receive the same opportunities and resources to continue your professional development as our staff team.

Workshop and direct support volunteering

Due to the needs of our members we are only able to accept volunteering applications from individuals that are able to provide a regular commitment for a minimum of 6-8 weeks. This can be as little as half a day a week to full time hours, however the days that you volunteer may have to be the same each week.

Although we accept that your circumstances may change and therefore we can be flexible with this timescale, it is important for potential applicants to recognise that for both the applicant and our members to get the most out of your placement, there needs to be sufficient time spent building trusting relationships.

If would like to ask us any questions, please contact the local branch in your area. All volunteering opportunities are managed at each local branch and therefore to enquire about availability you should contact the specific location that you are interested in volunteering for.

Skill based volunteering

Do you have specific skills or knowledge of a specific area that you love to teach others about? We feel it is really important to provide our members with as many opportunities to broaden their awareness and learn new skills. It is for these reasons that we like to regularly invite individuals that would like to plan and deliver skills/knowledge based learning sessions within our existing daily group workshops.

A typical workshop includes around 10 individuals with high functioning autism/aspergers, and at least 4 staff members to support them. You will be responsible for planning and delivering the content (we’ll work with you to make sure this is autism-friendly and also help you in any way we can) and we will make sure that our members are supported to engage with your session.

When we receive an expression of interest from an individual we consult with all of our members to see who would like to attend the specific topic. This does mean sometimes that due to a lack of interest we have to respectfully decline some applications, however our members are keen to learn new things and so this only happens rarely.

Corporate Volunteering

Does your employer provide you with a specific number of hours that you can use towards charitable causes across the year? We have a number of regular opportunities for you to participate throughout our organisation. These volunteering placements may be working on specific new projects, helping out with building things like sensory rooms, fundraising, gardening and spending some time at our social enterprises.

Similar to the above skills based volunteering, we also enjoy getting to know what you do at the organisation you work for and so do our members. Perhaps you may want to use your volunteering hours to provide work orientation visits to the members on our employment programmes or to come to our sites and deliver a presentation around what your job role involves.

We have many ways that you can support the great work that we do across the year, however as the needs of our organisation change, so does the availability of these volunteering roles. To find out more about how you can use your voluntary hours to support our cause currently, please contact head office.

” All the staff were really helpful and informative when I asked different questions about the different forms of autism. I found information on the different sensory needs of the service users really informative and I will be referring back to this whilst dealing with patients in the future, especially when a patient has both autistic needs and mental health issues.