Experience of working for counselling charity?

Rowsby woof

Hi there, I'm a BSc Psych student, and I'm interested in doing some volunteer work for a charity, either on a helpline, through email or face-to-face. I'm finding the idea a little daunting, to be honest, and I wondered if anyone with experience could tell me a little about what it's like?

HiGlo

Rowsby woof wrote: »

Hi there, I'm a BSc Psych student, and I'm interested in doing some volunteer work for a charity, either on a helpline, through email or face-to-face. I'm finding the idea a little daunting, to be honest, and I wondered if anyone with experience could tell me a little about what it's like?

I'm also a psychology student & I do volunteer work on a phoneline. I was the same, I found it pretty daunting to start with but they take you through full training & in my case we had a couple of listening skills sessions, which involves sitting observing for a bit before having to start taking calls...
The calls can be daunting the odd time but you just have to do your best & there's support available to all of us on the phones if we need it...
For the most part, it's grand and you get a few regular callers who you get to know.

eruanna

Another psych student, I volunteer with Aware and I love it. You're given very strict training on what you're allowed to say and not say, and it's not really counselling as such, just more letting people get stuff off their chests and helping them find appropriate services or ways to help themselves. You can do either phone support or email support.