CHIMO Crisis Services

What services does your organization provide?

• Nova Transitation House - safe shelter for women and their children, escaping family violence.
• Crisis Lines
• Outreach & Advocacy
• Newcomer Assistance Centres (Settlement and Integration)
• Pro Bono Law Clinics
• Counselling
• Community Engagement

Do you have any age requirements?
Volunteers must be 19 years of ago or older.

Do you require language proficiency other than in English?
In most cases there is no mandatory additional language required; however, in many of our programs, additional languages are a definite asset as we serve a diverse group of people. This is especially true for Community Connections volunteers (Settlement & Integration) and Personal Advocates (Outreach & Advocacy).

What time commitment(s) are you expecting from a volunteer?
Most of our programs have a volunteer commitment of 100 hours - one 4-hour shift per week. The exception is Community Engagement, where volunteers deliver 4 workshops per month in high schools and the commitment is one full school year (ie September-June).

Are there any other requirements for being a volunteer?
An ability to commit the time and a desire to do challenging work one-on-one with clients are the main requirments.

Are there any specific skills and experience required?
The only program that requires some relative experience is Outreach & Advocacy, where we are looking for volunteers who have some previous experience in social services, through education, employment or other volunteer work.

What type of volunteer positions are typically available?
We have four volunteer programs:

• Crisis Lines
• Outreach & Advocacy (Personal Advocates)
• Community Engagement (Classroom Presenters and Workshop Facilitators)
• Settlement & Integration (Community Connections)

Is there any training provided for volunteers?
CHIMO provides extensive training for all volunteer positions.

• Crisis Lines/Outreach & Advocacy - nearly 60 hours of training including basic counselliing skills and knowledge components around mental health, addictions, relationship and child abuse, depression and suicide intervention.
• Community Engagement - presentation and facilitation skills, plus the knowledge components mentioned above
• Community Connections - orientation, facilitation skills and cultural sensitivity

What are the typical volunteer activities occurring at your organization?
Volunteers all work directly with clients, delivering CHIMO services as outlined above.

How will a person benefit from volunteering with CHIMO Crisis Services?
Volunteers gain skills and knowledge from extensive training, they gain practical experience from working directly with clients in their respective programs and upon completion of their volunteer commitment, are able to request references. Most volunteers also receive a certificate for completion of their initial volunteer commitment.

Do you accept high school students?
We have had occasional opportunities for students to volunteer with specific events such as the White Ribbon Campaign and a program that we called Stepping Out, whereby high school students were trained to deliver a series of 5 mini-workshops to Grade 6 and 7 students before entering high school. These are not regular on-going volunteer activities.