[eindoofus]

I am hoping to eventually take some undergrad classes in psychology but as of right now I do not have enough money to go back to school. Its going to take me a while to save up so I was thinking that there might be a way to use my free time on the weekends to do something productive. This way I can have something to put on my resume a few years down the road.

Does anyone have any ideas of volunteer work that I could possibly do that would be relevant to the field of psychology and which does not require any special training?

Thanks.

funny you should ask... My last session with my therapist I recieved a job offer....my therapy agency was starting a peer to peer program where those t hat wanted to could sign up for this on one or both sides. one side of it is having someone come intto my home to talk with me and the other side is my going into the homes of the homebound (those that cannot get out of the house) and spend time talking with them. its basically peer counseling only not a therapist kind of thing. You might check with your therapy agency to see if they have a peer program of some kind.

Crisis centers are always looking for vollunteers to help with walk ins, talk phone calls, filing whatever you can offer to do for and with them.

There is sexual assault program here that also goes into schools to teach about sexual assault prevention and after care if it happens. some crisis centers also do this.

both of these ideas I have done myself and had great results and loved doing them.

my college has volunteers who man the suicide/crisis hotline. There are also volunteers who work at childrens homes. There is also an organization where i live that allows for vounteers to become advocate for children who are in court cases involving custody. i would just call non-profit organizations and ask if they could use a volunteer.

here they don't have vollunteers working in the childrens homes with the children for court reasons. here it is the law guardian ad liedum (licensed lawyer who has taken the state bar) and the childs state certified and or licensed therapist that does the court stuff for the children not vollunteers.

We have programs like head start that do that do 2 home visits a school year but it is not the parent vollunteers that do that. it is the certified and licensed teachers and therapists that do that.

It was the same way in other states that I lived in for those things.

I know that Big Brother/Big Sister and other type of mentor programs are city, state and nationwide but they don't work in the childs home. they go through an extensive backround check including criminal activity and then they are assigned to a child to do things like take them to a movie, baseball game and so on.

There are also nation wide literacy vollunteer agencies but they also don't go into the childs homes they see the children during school time and sit in the public hallway with the child and tutor them in full view.

They have it this way because having someone work in the homes with the children can lead to harm for the child or even false charges by the children and or parents. So this state keeps any contact with children with very public and with specific criteria and so on.

Here even daycare providers (unless you are caring for your friends children) have to go through a certification and those hired by the daycare for pay or volluneer have to have certification now.