Please find below a list of frequently asked questions which we hope will help you with your decision to volunteer for LOROS.
If you are unable to find the answer you are looking for below please email volunteering@loros.co.uk or ring 0116 231 3771
No, although involving under 18s does open up some additional challenges around DBS checks and insurance. However, there are usually ways round this. Sometimes someone might become too old to volunteer in a role safely for themselves and others, but there is no upper age limit in principle, it’s a case of each person looked at on the merits of their health and capability for a given role.
Yes, while you’re volunteering with LOROS you’re on the LOROS insurance. The exception is if you’re using your own car, in which case you need to check with your insurer that the volunteering is covered and that it doesn’t attract an additional premium. LOROS insurance does not cover volunteers on their way to or from their place of volunteering.
Yes, that’s the glory of volunteering. You might think, “Well, I couldn’t do that, I’m not a nurse.” But don’t look at it like that. What LOROS is after is your care, your humanity, and your ability to fulfil a role capably. If the role excites you, apply. The training LOROS provides is the thing that will make you feel confident to undertake the volunteering you want to do.
Yes, and recently the Government/JobCentres have taken the view that volunteering tends to be good for health and good for employability. Just check with your Advisor as the contract between a claimant and the social security authorities works best with openness between parties. To volunteer every day of the week might well be said by a JobCentre Advisor to mean that the Job Seeker is leaving themselves too little time to seek and apply for jobs, or someone claiming benefit on health or disability grounds, might be demonstrating their readiness for work.
Some volunteering in LOROS is required for set times on specific days, though as a volunteer, you can take time off or change your days, preferably with notice; but there are other areas of volunteering (Fundraising, Lotteries, Warehouse) where you can volunteer more flexibly, deciding for yourself when you want to commit hours. Just speak to the manager of the project you’re interested in.
There is no minimum in terms of hours a month for some roles or in terms of months or years. However, for some roles LOROS has to make an investment in terms of training and supporting new volunteers, and to be efficient, it is very helpful if volunteers will then stay with the organisation for a year or two. But the bottom line is there is no contract between LOROS and its volunteers; as a volunteer you don’t have to make that sort of commitment. Some roles are designed to be short term, and these are there just for those without long-term availability.
