Volunteering at Rainbow Trust: FAQs

Not at all – if you’re passionate about our cause and want to improve the lives of seriously ill children and their families, we have lots of roles that might suit you. We assume volunteers have no experience, so our training and induction programme is designed to give you everything you would need to prepare you for your role.

Most of our volunteer roles that involve directly supporting families are available for over 18s.

We welcome volunteers aged 16+ to join our Events Team, you just need to ask a parent or guardian to sign our parental consent form.

We occasionally have opportunities for young people aged 14+ to complete their DofE Awards with us, at our Head Office in Leatherhead.

We offer development opportunities and training relevant to the role you will be doing, covering a range of areas that could include safeguarding, health and safety, data protection, public speaking, communication skills and IT.

We partner with lots of companies support us in a range of ways. We are pleased to offer a range of volunteering opportunities for individuals and small groups, from holding your own bucket collection, supporting participants at a sports event cheer point, and pro bono or skill-sharing opportunities. For more information please contact our Corporate team.

Please note that opportunities to volunteer directly with the children and families we support are very rare, given the sensitive situations that families are experiencing.

Yes, we reimburse travel costs in line with our Volunteer Expenses policy, which you will receive a copy of on your first day, or you can ask the Volunteering team for a copy.

Having a criminal record will not necessarily prevent you from volunteering with us – this will depend on the role you are interested in, and the details of the offence. We make decisions on a case-by-case basis after completing a risk assessment. You can ask our team for a copy of our Recruitment of Ex-Offenders policy for more information on this.

This depends on which benefits you receive, or which visa you hold or are applying for. The best way to find out is to check with your local authority or government agency for the latest information. If you need any evidence of your volunteering, we can help with providing any documents you might need.

We advertise all of our available roles on our website, but if you can’t find anything right for you, please get in touch with the team at [email protected] or call 01372 220043 and we will see what we can do.