Volunteer Application FAQs

The application process is designed for both you and SU Scotland to consider if SU Scotland is the right volunteering opportunity for you, what roles within SU Scotland are right for you and what support or training you might require. The application process explores:

• Do you share the vision and values of SU Scotland?
• Where are you on your faith journey as described by you and by those in your church leadership?
• What experience do you have in sharing your faith and the bible with children?
• What gifts do you have in working with children as identified by you and by others?
• Are you an appropriate person for the role of working with children, including a Protection of Vulnerable Groups (PVG) scheme membership application or update?
• What is your availability and in what context would you like to volunteer (school groups, missions, residentials, Connect groups)?
• What support or arrangements might you need due to a mobility restriction, a sensory impairment, a health issue, etc?
• What training have you had, or might you need, including practical qualifications like driving, food hygiene, activities, etc?
• For catered events, what food allergies do you have?
• If you have a health condition or allergy where you may suffer an acute attack at an event, how should the first aiders respond?
• Who is your emergency contact (next of kin)?

Annually we will ask you to update anything that may have changed since you applied. This includes your availability, which may simply be that you are available to continue serving in the school group you are already in or it may be when you are free for missions or residential events or if you would like to get involved in another school. We also ask that you provide a referee from your church leadership, who sees you more regularly than SU Scotland, to update us on your ongoing suitability for volunteering with SU Scotland.

Each year the application process for the following year opens in the autumn. Any new application that is completed after the opening date is valid up to December of the following year. Therefore if you complete your updates at any time before December each year you will always be a fully accredited SU Scotland volunteer.

If you complete your application at any other time you will be fully accredited up until the end of the calendar year in which you completed your application.

Note:  An application (or update) is complete when you have completed all the mandatory forms, signed the declarations, we have received your reference(s) and have a PVG certificate for SU Scotland.

Please don’t delay! Things can often take longer than anticipated.  It is good to give your referees good notice that a reference is needed. In addition if you are volunteering for the first time a PVG Scheme membership form will be required and these can be delayed at busy periods for Disclosure Scotland.

Your church is partnering with SU Scotland to run this event.  The event will be run under the SU Scotland banner and SU Scotland’s child protection procedures. Therefore, everyone involved in working with children needs to be an SU Volunteer. If anything were to go wrong, it would be SU Scotland’s responsibility. Parents sending their children to the event expect SU Scotland to be adhering to best practice.  SU Scotland therefore has a responsibility to the churches we partner with, the children who attend and to their parents to ensure that those representing SU Scotland at a Mission (Holiday Club) are appropriate for this work and are being recruited, supervised and supported with that in mind.

Each time you hit save and continue the section you have completed will be saved.

If you have entered information but not submitted/saved that section and leave it, the information is not automatically saved and you will have to enter it again.

You can stop working on your application; however, as a security measure it will time-out after half an hour and you will have to log in again. Any unsaved information will be lost.

We are trying to achieve a balance between being able to provide sufficient information and not making the application process too onerous. For most sections requiring a written response we are seeking a character ‘picture’ that allows us to gain an understanding of your background and willingness to undertake the various roles on offer.

We hope this limit will be sufficient for the vast majority volunteers but if there is anything else that we need to be made aware of you can contact the Volunteers Department on volunteers@suscotland.org.uk, or by telephone on 0141 352 7610 to discuss any issues.

Contact details, church involvement and personal information change and the update gives you the opportunity to keep these up to date.

This includes an opportunity to tell us of your availability in the coming year, which may simply be that you are available to continue serving in the school group you are already in or it may be when you are free for missions or residential events or if you would like to get involved in another school.

We also ask that you provide a referee from your church leadership, who sees you more regularly than SU Scotland, to update us on their experience of you.

It is helpful for Volunteers Department to see where you are expecting to volunteer. If there is then a difference between what you indicate on the form and the event or SU Group we have you connected to it alerts us to confirm, as appropriate, with Team Leaders, Regional Workers or Associate Trust Workers. This is all part of keeping information about volunteers up to date.

However it is not essential. You can leave the form blank if you are continuing in a school group or a Team Leader has invited you to be part of an event.

What we're looking for in the Availability section is a sense of the availability volunteers have to serve throughout the year. This helps us especially when we're trying to fill gaps or staff teams that are short on numbers. If you already have a specific volunteering area confirmed or in mind, and don't want to add other availability throughout the year, then you can fill out the relevant sections and ignore the rest.

Under the PVG Scheme, Disclosure Scotland inform any interested party if a PVG Scheme member is considered for listing or barred from doing regulated work. To become an interested party an organisation must submit a PVG application in relation to the regulated work that the individual is doing for that organisation. Therefore, all volunteers working with children within SU Scotland must complete a PVG form specifically for SU Scotland as an organisation. That way SU Scotland become an interested party in relation to that individual.

It is not lawful to simply ask to see a PVG Scheme member’s certificate from another organisation. That would just be a record of status at a specific point in time. The organisation must be linked to the person and that is done using the Existing Member form.

If you applied for PVG Scheme membership you will have been issued a PVG Scheme membership certificate from Disclosure Scotland. If you cannot find this please contact Disclosure Scotland on 03000 2000 40 who will confirm your PVG Scheme membership number (after you answer some security questions). They will not issue a duplicate certificate as your circumstances might have changed in the intervening period.

If you applied for PVG Membership you will have been issued a PVG Membership Certificate from Disclosure Scotland. If you cannot find this please contact Disclosure Scotland on 03000 2000 40 who will confirm your PVG status (after you answer some security questions). They will not issue a duplicate certificate as your circumstances might have changed in the intervening period.

It is a legal requirement that you inform Disclosure Scotland if you change your name, address or gender. You can do this at any time.

If you are completing a PVG Update form for SU Scotland and there is a change that you have not already told Disclosure Scotland about then enclose a sheet of paper with details of any change, including the date of the change. For example, for an address change write your previous address, new address and the date you moved on the sheet of paper.

Your referee must have known you for at least 6 months.

Your referee should be someone in leadership in your church.

For a full application you will need two referees. Your second referee should be someone who knows you well and if possible has seen you working with children in any context. If your first referee has seen you working with children it is less important that your second referee has.

Referees must not be a member of the SU Scotland team you are going to be part of, a close relative or an employee of SU Scotland or our Associate Trusts.

For Missions in some small or island communities there may be a problem finding church leaders who are not on the team. If that is the case contact the Volunteers Department or the Missions Development Manager for advice on how to proceed.

The majority of our volunteers take part in one or a few events per year or are part of a volunteer team in a school group. SU Scotland staff often don’t see you working with children regularly.  Therefore each year SU Scotland ask for a reference from someone with a pastoral responsibility for you who sees you regularly and knows how you are growing in your faith and developing in your experience.

In order to consider the right roles for you it is essential that SU Scotland understands where you are in your faith journey and what experience you have in sharing your faith and the Bible with children, both as identified by you and by others. That is why we ask your church leader to answer the following three questions:

1. Is the applicant a committed Christian who is involved in the life of the church?
2. Can you confirm that the applicant would be considered suitable to work with children and young people?
3. How does the applicant respond to working with a team leader and with other team members?

The referee also has opportunity to share anything else they consider relevant to the application.

SU Scotland has a responsibility to assess the suitability of all volunteers on an equitable basis. For church leaders we appreciate your willingness to model good practice and accountability by providing an independent reference.

It is also possible that someone could identify themselves as a church leader to avoid references if that option was available. SU Scotland would not want to establish processes that would in any way water down our safeguarding provisions.

You should should seek agreement from your referee before nominating them.

If your referee doesn’t provide a reference within one month SU Scotland will contact you to let you know so that you can remind them. If another month goes by we will contact you again. As you have the relationship with the referee it is best that you contact them and ask them to complete the reference. If they have lost the e-mail request you can resend it from your account. If you need a paper version contact the Volunteers Department who can send one directly to your referee.

You can change your referee at any time via your online account.

• click on the reference,
• change the details on the form
• click “Save and continue”

If your referee does not receive the reference request:

1. It may be that it is in the recipient's Junk Email folder. Please ask your referee to check.
2. There may be an error in the e-mail address you have typed. Please log into your account and check

Tip:
It is common for referees not to receive the reference request because of a small error in the contact e-mail address that is entered on an online application. Common mistakes are to put the wrong suffix e.g. “co.uk” instead of “org.uk” or to have a small spelling mistake in the person’s name or domain name.

If you can’t identify a problem contact Volunteers Department for assistance (0141 352 7610, volunteers@suscotland.org.uk).

We would like you to declare medical conditions for a number of reasons:

• If you are allergic to any food we need to aware of this for catered events. If you are allergic to other things we need to be aware so as to ensure the substance is not used at the event or advise you that it may be or react appropriately in event of something like a bee sting where an allergic reaction will arise.
• Where you require additional support or some practical arrangements it is essential to know this in advance to ensure that any requirements can be put in place. In rare occasions it may not be possible to make appropriate provision at a specific venue or within a specific team.
• If you become unwell at an event, knowing what medication you are taking or any condition you have may be essential information to those who treat you.
• If there are specific activities that your health condition would prevent you from doing we need to ensure that we are not asking you to take part in such activities.

The questions are asked to understand a little bit more about you. Our school groups, missions and residential events aim to help children understand something more of Jesus and the Christian faith. It is therefore helpful for us to have an appreciation of your own faith journey so that we place you in a role that is right for you. We do not want to place you in a role that would be beyond your capacity and may be uncomfortable for you.

Our faith also has a corporate dimension. We are a body and will have different roles which can vary due to our own faith journey and experience.

That’s OK. Don’t worry. Write what you can. It doesn’t have to be a massively long answer. Fill it in honestly so that we know what responsibilities you will be comfortable with. The form is intended to enable you think through and express what Jesus and your faith mean to you as you look to help the children at your school group, Connect group, mission or residential event.

If you like, we can have a conversation about it, and perhaps could help you think of a way of summarising.

If you have previously completed an online application the commitment and service information that you have entered will be present when you open the form. You can update this at any time or choose not to make any changes. The exception to this is where you are moving to a Team Leader role. Team leaders are asked to complete some additional questions. Subsequently those answers will be there when you update future applications.

If your last application was on a paper or PDF form you will need to answer the questions the first time you complete an online application.

If you are volunteering to drive a minibus for SU Scotland you need a DVLA check code. The DVLA no longer issues a paper counterpart showing disqualifications or endorsements with the photographic driving licence. This information is available via the check code. You should apply on the DVLA website for a check code. 

To get a DVLA check code you will need:

• your driving licence number
• your National Insurance number
• the postcode on your driving licence

Once we have your check code it provides access to this information for a limited period allowing us to consider your driving licence entitlements, driving endorsements etc.