mothertongue multi-ethnic counselling and listening service
accredited by bacp
Charity Awards 2007 Winners
The Queens Award for Voluntary Service
mother and daughter asian woman friends west indian young man

What do our volunteers do?
Volunteers work with individual clients as well as groups. The role of the volunteer has changed over the years and today our volunteers help with language support and group facilitation. Volunteers have been assisting with the Art Project at Reading Girls' School providing language support to newly arrived girls, and the teacher, involved. Another volunteer has helped with the Basic ESOL classes providing extra support for the students. Volunteers have helped with childcare, when clients have been attending counselling appointments. A creche has also been run with volunteer support when groups have been run allowing wider access to women with small children. Mothertongue and Reading Citizen's Advice Bureau provide Thursday morning appointments at the Mothertongue offices for clients who need language support. These appointments have proved very popular and our volunteers' language support has been invaluable.

Some of the other activities volunteers have been involved in:
  • Our volunteers identified their training needs, which resulted in successful training days. Volunteers received training on assertiveness to build their skills and confidence in accessing employment and training
  • Confidence Building Training was delivered to volunteers in 2009 with the intention of building up volunteer skills and presentation skills. This, in turn, could then be passed onto clients through volunteers facilitating groups or working 1-1 with clients
  • As a result of the Confidence Building Training 2 of our volunteers have run 3 Confidence Building Groups for clients and these have been very successful. They also delivered a workshop in Maidenhead for a women's group and hope to run other groups for Mothertongue in the near future.
  • Some of our volunteers worked with a youth group to engage with young asylum seekers, producing a leaflet giving tips on stress management for young asylum seekers in Albanian, Arabic, Swahili, Farsi and French
  • Volunteers remain an integral part of the organisation and attend as many of our calendar functions as possible to lend their support
  • The Queen's Award for Voluntary Action, awarded to Mothertongue in 2009, is a tribute to the work that the Mothertongue volunteers past and present have contributed to the organisation over the years
Volunteering success stories
We gather information and feedback from our clients and they had the following to say about Mothertongue volunteers:

"The person also helped me with my English as I couldn't speak very well....at Mothertongue there was always someone to listen to you."

"Thanks to the work and dedication of the volunteer worker and the language support I was able to receive help and get out of problems."



  • One Polish client said that because of Mothertongue's help he was able to change his life around
  • Another Polish client said that because of the language support she received from a volunteer it alleviated her anxiety as it was important for her to remain calm as she was pregnant at the time.
  • The language support offered through the Citizen's Advice Bureau appointments meant that one Indian client was able to sort out her debt problems effetcively
  • One of the girls at Reading Girls' School involved with the Art Project said of the volunteer: 'She is really nice to me, speaks to me in my language so I dont feel scared.'
  • Another of the girls in the Art Project said that the volunteers had helped her in speaking English and now she felt good that she could talk to the other girls in her class
  • A Portuguese client thanked Mothertongue for all their services and the volunteer who had helped her with language support in order to help her with complicated finanical issues

  • Interested in volunteering with us?
    We ask all our volunteers to complete our three-day training course, during which you will learn how to:

    • Help people from diverse cultural backgrounds access mainstream services such as education, training and medical services
    • Learn about professional guidelines and behaviour when supporting clients in a Health and Social Care capacity
    • Learn how to support group facilitators and learn how to run groups
    • Communicate effectively in English and other languages you may speak
    • Put into practice equal opportunity policies
    • Support people who are feeling vulnerable

    Once you have completed your training we ask for two references and your permission to conduct a criminal records check.

    If you would like to find out more details about the volunteering opportunities and information about our next training course, please contact us at info@mothertongue.org.uk.
    The Big Lottery Fund
    Reading Primary Care Trust
    TheTudor Trust
    Reading Borough Council
    Triodos Foundation
    Vodafone UK Foundation
    Berkshire Community Foundation