Active Listeners
What Does An Active Listener Do?
As an Active Listener, your role is to:
- Offer a calm, non-judgemental space for service users to talk
- Listen with empathy, patience, and without interrupting or problem-solving
- Build trust and rapport through consistent, compassionate presence
- Alert staff sensitively if any safeguarding or support concerns arise
- Respect boundaries, confidentiality, and Maggs’ values at all times
You’re not expected to fix problems or give advice — just to be there, fully present.
Active Listeners
Why It Matters
Many of the people we support have experienced trauma, exclusion, or long periods of isolation. Active Listening helps rebuild trust, promotes mental wellbeing, and reinforces a sense of dignity and human worth.
You won’t always see the impact straight away — but for someone who feels invisible, being truly heard can be a powerful first step toward change.
Active Listeners
What We're Looking For
- Warm, empathetic and non-judgemental
- Comfortable with silence and emotional conversations
- Reliable, trustworthy and respectful of boundaries
- Willing to undertake training in active listening, trauma-informed practice, and safeguarding
- Able to commit to regular volunteering (even just a few hours per month)
Active Listeners
When & Where
Active Listeners are based at our Worcester and Malvern Day Centres, primarily during drop-in hours. Shifts are typically 2–3 hours and are flexible around your availability.
Interested in Becoming an Active Listener?
We’d love to hear from you. Please email volunteers@maggsdaycentre.co.uk with a brief introduction about yourself and why you’re interested in the role. Our team will be in touch to arrange an informal chat and explain next steps.
Full training and ongoing support will be provided.
I thoroughly enjoy my volunteering role, arriving to start the breakfast, chatting as the service users come in serving teas and coffee, it’s great to know their names and greet them with a smile and ask how their doing, how are they feeling, taking their drinks over and chatting to them to let them know they matter, I try and find a subject they are interested in and build on that so when I next see them the following week, we can carry on where we left off, I can pick up when they appear down, I will sit with them and hopefully make their day that little bit brighter… I look forward to every Tuesday coming to Maggs, it’s a wonderful charity and a life line in so many ways…
Shaz Gannon, Current Active Listener
