Court Based Volunteer

The Witness Service, provided by Victim Support, welcomes people who want to volunteer to support victims and witnesses through the court process.

 If you’re interested in the criminal justice system, have some spare time to give and are looking for an opportunity to help within the local community, this could be the right place for you.

We are looking for 2 new volunteers to joint the small, friendly team at Basingstoke Magistates Court. As a Witness Service volunteer, you’ll be joining a team who are committed to supporting witnesses to give their best evidence in court. Some of the things you might be doing include:

• Providing information to witnesses when they come to court
• Answering questions about how the court system works
• Facilitating pre-trial visits and virtual court tours

Skills

As a volunteer, you’ll be friendly and understanding, and confident in supporting people through an anxious time. You’ll be empathetic, non-judgemental, and have good listening and communication skills. You’ll also be comfortable in supporting people from a wide variety of backgrounds.

 We encourage you to volunteer for at least 12 months (after the training period) to help you to get the most out of the experience and provide some consistency for the victims and witnesses that we support. We also ask that you’re able to access the internet for communication and online training and have an active email account so we can contact you easily. You should be comfortable using online forms where we collect information to monitor and evaluate the services we provide. You’ll receive full training on any systems that you are asked to use while volunteering with us.

Training

Whilst waiting for their DBS check, volunteers observe trials and complete foundation e-learnings.

 Once started at court training is:

•  Shadowing experienced volunteers
• Attending 3 x online Core Learning sessions (facilitated by a trainer)
• 1 half day online session on Safeguarding (facilitated by a trainer)
• The training can take around 3 months to be accredited.