Volunteering with IPSEA
Volunteers are the heart of IPSEA. Every year they advise and support over 2,000 callers, ringing for advice about their children with special educational needs (SEN) / disability.
Demand for IPSEA’s advice and support is high. Every day our main advice line receives more than 100 calls that we cannot answer. We are always keen to hear from anyone interested in helping us to meet more of the demand for our advice and support. We are currently recruiting volunteers for:
All our advice line, tribunal support and tribunal helpline volunteers work through the IPSEA on-line training programme as part of their induction. Once this thorough training is completed, they work closely with a more experienced volunteer as they begin to advise and support families.Volunteers who choose to cover our help lines can work from their homes. Volunteers who choose to provide tribunal support will need to travel to meetings.
The training consists of 30 hours of preliminary home study completed on-line, followed by a two-day course to consolidate this study and introduce practical work. This is followed by further supervised practical work supported and supervised by a mentor.
In view of the time and costs involved in recruiting and training new volunteer advisers, IPSEA asks that all new volunteers commit to a minimum of two years with the organisation. IPSEA reserves the right to request all or part payment of training costs (around £1,500 per volunteer) if a volunteer leaves within two years of joining IPSEA.
All volunteers will be required to fill in and submit the necessary paperwork in relation to each parent they advise. Volunteers will also be required to comply with IPSEA’s monitoring procedures which enable us to quality control and evaluate our services. These procedures will be explained in detail during the volunteer training.