What do volunteers do?
Volunteers are essential to our services and are highly valued for the variety of skills and experience that they bring. At any time we may have between 8 and 24 volunteers on our list. Always backed up by paid workers, they help staff our Needle and Syringe Exchanges and offer advice, support, assessment and information, both face to face and on the telephone, working with individuals or groups. They are placed either at our Bath Office or at “satellite” services all over Wiltshire and North-East Somerset.

What kind of people can volunteer for BADAS?
There is no particular profile of a “typical” BADAS volunteer worker. Some are on counselling courses, some are looking for a new career, some are returning to work now that their children are at school, some just want to do something useful in their spare time. Volunteers come from all sorts of backgrounds; in recent years we have trained a mechanic, an estate maintenance person, a chef, a taxi driver, a teacher, a postman, a lighting designer, a market trader, a factory worker and a video editor, as well as lots of mothers returning to work.
We are also keen to recruit people over the age of 60 and those from ethnic minority groups currently under-represented on our team. We are particularly keen to recruit volunteers from the Eastern European Community..

Can I volunteer if I’ve had a drug or alcohol problem myself?
We receive many applications from people who have had a period of problematic use of drugs or alcohol and who wish to put their experience to good use. We welcome such applicants.

What training is offered to volunteers?
In order to keep up high standards of service to our clients, we carefully select our volunteers and rigorously train them. Initial training is in a group of up to twelve people and experiential in nature, i.e. it is not just a “taught” course - we get trainees to practise the skills we teach, and to experience some of the emotions likely to come up while volunteering at BADAS, through either role play or reflection on their own lives. Volunteers are required to attend the whole course of training, which consists of 9 days.

It’s a commitment!!
Following basic training, volunteers are inducted into their roles. They will also receive ongoing supervision. We also organise ongoing training for both volunteers and paid staff throughout the year. We put considerable resources into the basic training course, so volunteers’ commitment to us is important. We ask volunteers to commit to work with us for eight hours per week, in a regular pattern, (usually a full day but possibly two half-days), for a year following basic training. Our main centres and satellites are currently open morning and afternoon on every weekday, and on some weekday early evenings.

All travel and childcare expenses are met during training and volunteering.