Annual review [ 1.4 MB] - Citizens Advice

The Millom office has had another busy and successful year since moving to ouroffice in Wellington Street in 2009. Our office is now centrally based and this hasenabled us to enhance a service that is client centred, user friendly and easilyaccessible to all.Millom office is open on Monday and Thursday for open sessions, Friday morningfor follow up appointments and Monday and Tuesday at HMP Haverigg outreachsessions.Bureau VolunteersTo help us provide the CAB service to clients we have been supported by our 6trained volunteer generalist advisers and 1 volunteer trainee adviser. Two of ourvolunteer advisers have been with the CAB in the Millom office for 10 years+ andtwo others 5 years.One of my roles in the bureau is to support, encourage, challenge and guide thegeneralist advisers and trainees through their time with us (hopefully all remainingfor many months if not years!). We all work first and foremost as a team in thebureau, supporting one another before, during and after client’s sometimescomplex and sometimes personal issues. The satisfaction we all gain for helpingthe clients is the knowledge we are helping to make a difference to their lives.We are extremely grateful for the commitment the volunteers give to the CAB,often volunteering for extra hours and days each week due to holiday’s, sicknessand family commitments.RecruitmentThe recruitment and training of our volunteers is vital to the continuation of the CABservice. During the year, we have had 5 volunteers join the Millom office,unfortunately 2 left for personal reasons, 1 to increase his working hours, 1 isundergoing the Generalist Adviser training and 1 is now our volunteer Social PolicyWorker.We are constantly looking for new volunteers to train with CAB as Gateway andGeneralist Advisers and we look forward to welcoming people into the CAB Service.With more trained volunteer advisers we will be able to open longer hours and toexpand our outreach sessions within the Millom and surrounding area. We are alsolooking for volunteers to train as Trustee board members and Social Policy workers.TrainingDuring the year we have had in-house training sessions on a variety of subjects e.g.:Case Recording, Employment and Support Allowance, Social Policy and theEmployment Act. We also include Bite sized learning and E-learning in our training.Our Advisers have been to training sessions on: Housing Foundation, Peer Review,Housing Advice and Relationship Breakdown.108Joyce Chapman, Deputy Manager based at Millom Office1312321767412Debt: 108, Finance: 3, Legal: 13,Travel: 2, Heath: 1,Tax: 7, Benefits: 6, Housing: 7,Immigration: 4, Consumer: 1, Other: 2,Relationship: 12Contact by method