Volunteer with Crisis this Christmas and be there for someone as they build a life beyond homelessness.
Apply to volunteer for Crisis at Christmas in London 2024Join our friendly and supportive volunteer community that’s passionate about ending homelessness. With many volunteers returning year after year, the connections you make this Christmas can be long-lasting. And the relationships you build with people experiencing homelessness can be life-changing.
Every Christmas, we provide warmth, companionship, and vital services to thousands of people facing homelessness. In London, we provide individual hotel rooms to hundreds of people in most need of support. This is only possible thanks to the support of thousands of volunteers across Britain.
Through our year-round services, hotels and health and wellbeing programmes, we’ll be supporting over 6,000 people this Christmas.
We have a range of roles and shift times across December and January to suit you. You could be welcoming guests, serving hot meals, or running activities and services in our hotels and day centres. Or you could work behind the scenes in our Canning Town Warehouse, helping to get vital supplies out to our services. We also need specialist health and wellbeing volunteers such as physios, opticians, hairdressers and more to support our guests. Whatever your role, you’ll be making a huge difference.
We ask that volunteers commit to at least two shifts. All training will be provided beforehand, including information on what to expect and how to prepare for your role. This year we’re particularly looking for volunteers to fill our night shift and January roles. You can find out more about these roles, alongside all our other roles on My Crisis Volunteering when you begin your application.
Please contact us on the email below: ccvolunteering@crisis.org.uk or give us a call on 0203 745 4004.
Crisis at Christmas will be running this year from 22 December to 20 January. Across our hotels and day centres we offer our guests and wide range of support and services not just Christmas dinner.
We will have some kitchen roles in our Day Centres from 24 December to 28 December, however, spaces are extremely limited. You will also need a Food Safety Level 2 Certificate for these roles.
Most new volunteers start off in the general volunteer (for our day guests) or hotel assistant (for our residential guests) which gives a great view of how we work, and you'll be doing lots of different roles during your shift.
We ask all our volunteers to do a minimum of two shifts as part of their volunteering.
It’s great that you want to support us this Christmas! There are lots of opportunities to support us through fundraising or campaigning work. To find out more, click through Other ways to support buttons on the Crisis at Christmas webpage.
Some of our roles require previous experience or qualifications and others do not.
Professional service volunteers, such as those completing health checks or haircuts will require the relevant qualifications and public liability insurance.
In some roles we may be looking for volunteers with experience of supporting people who are homeless or other vulnerable adult groups. Information about each role will be listed on our website and throughout your volunteer application form. Please check this information before applying to ensure you are applying for the most suitable role for you.
If you are feeling poorly we urge you to not volunteer until you are feeling better.
As we prioritise the health of our guests, volunteers who display any symptoms will be asked to leave their shift.
You can cancel your shift in MCV or let us know by email ccvolunteering@crisis.org.uk or give us a call on 0203 745 4004
If you need to access your volunteer account please visit My Crisis Volunteering. Here you can access information on your shifts, including if you need to cancel or amend them and any learning relating to your volunteering as well as update your contact details.
The voice and expertise of people with lived experience is vital in ensuring our service is truly meeting the needs of our members. We encourage anyone with lived experience to apply for our volunteer roles.
We also involve members and people with lived experience of homelessness in opportunities across the organisation including our Experts by Experience panel. For more details, please speak to the Member Involvement Team: memberinvolvement@crisis.org.uk
We do not ask for references for Christmas volunteers.
At Christmas, due to the volume of volunteers recruited, we are unable to provide detailed references. We will only provide a start and finish date for those who have completed a volunteering shift in the previous two years. The only exception to this is for the lead/senior volunteers who work closely with Crisis and members of staff beyond the Christmas service delivery period.
At Christmas, due to the volume of volunteers recruited we are unable to cover expenses.
Many of the roles in our services will require a disclosure check, (either basic or enhanced) - you will be able to see this on the role description. If the role does, we use a digital system to manage this and we will request and pay for it (where payment is needed).
If you have a criminal conviction, this does not automatically mean you cannot volunteer for us. However, we may need to ask you more about the conviction to be able to do a risk assessment and decide if you can or cannot volunteer.
We have volunteering opportunities that come up year-round and are advertised on our volunteering webpage.
StreetLink exists to help end rough sleeping by enabling members of the public to connect people sleeping rough with the local services that can support them. Visit the StreetLink website to help someone you believe is sleeping rough or call them on 0300 500 0914.
They are welcome to come to their nearest Crisis at Christmas Day Centre. These are warm, safe places where people can access services, entertainment and community with no referral needed. All the details will be on the guest invite leaflets, which will be made available soon.
If they do not have anywhere to sleep and they do have an Outreach or Key Worker, they should ask the Outreach or Key Worker to refer them. Most of our guests do not stay overnight, but we do have some residential centres for people in the most urgent need.
Our hotels and day centres are all mixed-sex environments, we will not be providing any female only volunteering opportunities.
We want to ensure all our volunteers feel equipped and confident in their role, so we will ask you to complete some essential learning including on topics such as safeguarding, equality, diversity and inclusion and data protection, as well as role specific training for some positions. Completing this learning will help you and us ensure we keep everyone safe and maintain the privacy of people’s information, as well as creating an inclusive and welcoming environment for everyone.
Once you have registered and applied you will have access to e-learning relevant to your role and will be able to book onto an induction (dependent on your role).
This year there will be three day centres:
Our Day Centres will be open to guests from 24 December to 28 December. Volunteering shifts are from 9am to 6pm.
Our hotels will be in Aldgate, Docklands and Hyde Park areas of London. In order to protect the privacy of our guests we don’t make the exact locations public, but you will be able to see the addresses when you sign up to volunteer.
Your application will be reviewed, and you will receive a notification once this is complete.
Once an application has been approved you can select your shifts. If your role requires a disclosure check, you will be asked to start this process.
We have an induction session for all new volunteers and some role specific training as well as a suite of e-learning to ensure you’re well prepared for your volunteering.
Once all the steps are completed, you can begin your volunteering with us.
We do not provide transport for volunteers to or from their shifts. You would need to use your own vehicle or public transport.
If you are planning to drive to your shift please note Our centres have limited parking which is required for our senior volunteer team, service vehicles, and official Crisis transport vehicles. If you need to drive to your volunteering shift, you can use parking space search sites, e.g. www.parkopedia.com to find nearby parking.
We encourage using public transport where possible and you can use the TfL journey planner here: https://tfl.gov.uk/plan-a-journey/
Due to the popularity of our volunteering programme, we are no longer able to offer opportunities to companies who are looking to source one-off team events. All of our group volunteering opportunities are filled by our corporate partners.
If you are interested in becoming a Corporate Partner, please have a look on our website or send an email to corporatepartnerships@crisis.org.uk
We ask for all donations to be brought to our warehouse as part of our Community Donations so that we can equally distribute items to make sure every centre has what it needs.
Our warehouse in Canning Town will be open to receive Community Donations.
