To kick off Volunteers Week 2022, we give our heartfelt thanks to all of our volunteers. Working in a variety of roles, they have helped us to provide advocacy and run inclusion projects for autistic adults and adults with learning disabilities. Their input has ensured we can make people’s voices heard and empower them to speak up about their rights.

Supporting our work

Volunteers in the following roles have been integral to our organisation’s work:

  • Leep1 Activity Supporters – helping Leep1 members in their Friendship Group, Out and About groups and their monthly Club Nights, among other activities
  • Café Leep Assistants and Trainees – serving customers by preparing and cooking delicious food, from sandwiches and salads to specials like stews
  • CHANGE’s Words to Pictures Group – checking if easy read resources made by the CHANGE team are easy to understand
  • CHANGE’s Committee – ensuring that the CHANGE team are delivering training, working on projects and producing accessible resources as well as possible
  • Leeds Autism AIM and Yorkshire Autism AIM’s Steering Group – overseeing what both AIM services are doing, from advocacy and signposting to training and peer support
  • Learning Disability Citizen Advocates – volunteers paired with an adult with a learning disability to help them be heard and have their rights upheld
  • Asking You!’s Good Lives Leaders – adults with learning disabilities visiting their peers to see if they are having a good life
  • Our Self-Advocacy Steering Group – ensuring our self-advocacy resources are accessible to all who need help to speak up for their rights
  • Leep1’s Board – overseeing all of Leep1’s work, from in the café to their club nights and groups
  • The Out Spoken project’s Steering Group – volunteers who are LGBTQI+ and autistic and/or have a learning disability, inputting into the LGBTQI+ inclusion project’s work
  • Our Board of Trustees – ensuring that our advocacy services and inclusion projects deliver for their clients and members
  • Volunteer Community Advocates – helping our Community Advocacy team to make their clients voices’ heard and get their rights upheld

Working through COVID-19

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, our volunteers have committed to supporting the people we work with. Using technology such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams, Citizen Advocates have been able to meet their advocacy partners.

Steering Groups have been able to meet online to help keep their projects on track. Activity Supporters and Café Assistants have been working with Leep1 members and Café Leep’s trainees when it has been COVID-safe to do so.

No matter what role they are in, all our volunteers play a major part in ensuring advocacy is there for the people in Leeds who need it the most. From all of us at The Advonet Group, thank you!

If you want to find out more about our volunteering roles, please click on this link: Volunteer Roles. For any enquiries about volunteering, please email us at [email protected].