About us
Yare Valley Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) is an independent charitable organisation that helps people resolve their problems by providing information and advice. It is part of the national Citizens Advice organisation which aims to:
- Provide the advice people need for the problems they face.
- Influence policymakers to improve the policies and practices that affect people’s lives
Yare Valley CAB relies on a mixture of trained volunteers and paid staff to provide these vital services for our local community. Our service is open to anyone without favour: it is free, independent, confidential and impartial.
Gateway
The ‘Gateway’ approach helps clients to be quickly assessed and their issues progressed to the most appropriate next stage. That might be self-help information or an appointment with a specialist adviser. Gateway interviews can be carried out face-to-face or by telephone.
Outreach
We run outreach services at these locations:
Martham
An outreach advice service is provided on the third Monday of each month, 10am - 1pm. This is an appointment only session.
Gorleston
Drop-in sessions on Thursdays from 10am - 12 and 1pm - 3pm at the Gorleston Library
The difference we make
With a Citizens Advice Bureau in the community, everyone has somewhere to turn should the unexpected, the awful or the inexplicable happen. We do this by directing our efforts towards securing the benefits which have a positive impact on frontline services – lower debts, higher incomes, better health, closer communities, greater equality, more immediate justice. By helping people to deal with their own problems every level it represents cost savings to other service providers.
What do we advise on?
Yare Valley CAB staff, both paid and voluntary, are highly trained and have access to a large national database of information about legal rights and responsibilities, enabling them to tackle any problem.
We are also funded by the Legal Services Commission to employ specialist advisers on:
- Money and debt advice – we currently have specialist money
advisers, who can help with debt problems. They can provide face to
face advice casework helping clients regain control over their own
finances. Debt problems can cause serious health issues,
relationship breakdowns and have been known to cause some clients to
consider suicide. Help from experienced advisers can prevent all
these problems.
- Welfare Benefits issues – we help clients every day who have some
kind of Benefits or Mental Health issues and are often
unable to tackle problems themselves, or they may have difficulties
in communicating. Our trained specialists are able to provide the
right kind of advice to help these clients solve their problems
without causing further complications.
O
Read more about how the Citizens Advice service benefits the
community here:
http://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/index/publications/citizens_advice_impact_report.htm