Volunteering Opportunity: Remote Family Support Worker with Family Lives

Family Lives operate a free confidential helpline for anyone experiencing difficulties in their family or relationship. Our volunteers take calls from parents and carers on a wide range of subjects, whether that might be issues around separation and divorce, isolation, depression, bullying and abuse, dealing with behavioural problems, etc. We are a national service with home-based call takers county wide as well as three call centres in the UK. Once trained volunteers sign up for a weekly 4-hour shift comprising 3 hours ‘online’ followed by a debrief session with your supervisor which can last around half to one hour.

Opportunity Type: Long-term Commitment

District: Broxbourne, East Herts, St Albans, Welwyn/Hatfield

Location: From home

Time of day: Weekday Mornings, Weekday Afternoons, Weekday Evenings

Practical Considerations: Please note that all roles offered are subject to a satisfactory DBS being obtained, you will receive details of documentation required prior to your training and this must all be in no later than the second session of your training.

Requirements: Relevant qualification or training, Will require a criminal record check (DBS)

Suitable for: 18 – 25 year olds, Aged 26 and over, University students, Older People

Suitable for volunteers interested in: Carers Support, Children, Families & Family Support, Mental Health, Victim Support

Does this opportunity provide wheelchair access?: No

Full Description:
We recruit volunteers with a range of backgrounds and experiences though we ask that volunteers have experience of parenting or working with children and young people, are good listeners and have a willingness to learn. Being remote it will be very important that you have a PC/laptop, headset, good Wi-Fi and a private place to work from home.


Our training programme is excellent and will give you the opportunity to develop the skills needed to offer empathic support and guidance to callers whatever their circumstances; all shifts are overseen by a regular shift supervisor who provides ongoing remote support. We ask our volunteers to make a commitment of 1 year (with time off for holidays), obviously we understand that circumstances sometimes make that an impossibility but can be helpful to know at the outset that is the general expectation.

We have call taker training sessions in November 2022, this runs over five sessions the dates are below and is done remotely connecting you via a Microsoft Teams link. You would need to be able to attend all five sessions and be available on four occasions to listen into calls, this can be organised remotely.

We have some remote training in November 2022
10am to 2pm

We also run Saturday remote training.