Personal rewards of volunteering

Men's Referral Service volunteers give their time for a variety of reasons and have experienced a wide range of rewards. Below are just some of the rewards telephone counsellors have talked about.

New skills

Volunteering at the Men's Referral Service opens opportunities to develop a range of new skills.

For volunteer telephone counsellors, these include: 

  • interpersonal skills — such as active listening
  • skills in referral — ascertaining what services a person needs and how they might get them
  • skills in telephone counselling
  • computer skills
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Increased confidence

Many Men's Referral Service volunteers find that volunteering has made them feel more confident about their skills and personal qualities.

Our recruitment and training processes help you to uncover and affirm your strengths. The process of working on the phones gives you plenty of opportunities to build on these strengths and to put them to good use.

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Better relationships

People who volunteer with the Men's Referral Service often experience changes in the quality of both their intimate relationships and their relationships with friends, extended family and colleagues. This is partly attributable to improved confidence and communication skills, but is probably also a result of having greater insight into the complexities of human relationships.

Many of our telephone counsellors say that they are more aware of how they relate to their partner. They also say they now take greater responsibility for the emotional elements of relationship maintenance.

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Enhanced interpersonal communication

All of our volunteers receive training and ongoing support to strengthen their interpersonal communication. This is fundamental to good telephone counselling and also to being an effective community educator.

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Greater personal insight

We encourage and nurture personal reflection in all of our volunteers, but especially amongst our telephone counsellors. It is impossible to do good telephone counselling work if you haven't yet made sense of your own experiences and beliefs.

This doesn't mean that our volunteers don't have personal issues! After all, emotional difficulties and even mental health problems are part of life. What matters is that our volunteers have the capacity to think and talk about things that are worrying them, and to identify their own blind spots, biases and preconceptions. We support volunteers to work through these, and to address personal issues that arise in the context of their volunteer work.

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Contributing positively after having used violence in the past

Some of our volunteers have previously used violent and controlling behaviours against a partner. They have volunteered with the Men's Referral Service as part of their ongoing journey of change, after participation in a men’s behaviour change group.

These men generally see the Men's Referral Service as a way of giving something back to society after the harm they have caused. They are keen to help other men to change their behaviour, and know first-hand that this is possible.

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Enhanced experiences of fathering

Many of our volunteers are fathers — of babies, young children, teenagers or adults. Often they are volunteering in part because they are concerned about the kind of world their kids will inherit, and in particular because they want their daughters to live in a safer society.

Volunteers who are fathers have many opportunities to think about what values they want to pass on and what they are modelling to their children. They are often more conscious of the gender roles their kids are learning.

Many volunteers feel that their greater emotional awareness and personal insight has helped them to be better fathers.

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Making a contribution to society and to social change

The desire to be part of building a better, safer world for women and children is one of the biggest motivations for our volunteers.

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Reducing male family violence

Our volunteers are very committed to preventing male family violence and making a safer world for women and children.

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Opportunity to gain a qualification

Telephone counsellors must complete a Graduate Certificate in Social Science (Male Family Violence - Telephone Counselling) to become a telephone counsellor with the Men's Referral Service. This involves a challenging and highly rewarding training course.

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Opportunity to gain experience in the counselling field

Some men who volunteer as telephone counsellors do so in part because they are interested in exploring a career in counselling. The rigorous training required to become a telephone counsellor can be a great preview for further training towards professional work in counselling.

Some educational institutions will grant recognition of prior learning for telephone counsellors who have attained the Graduate Certificate.

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Opportunity to gain voluntary work experience

Prospective employers are increasingly recognising volunteering as a legitimate form of work experience. We can provide written references for our volunteers; these usually specify the volunteer's role, skills, length of service and hours worked.

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