What can Citizens Advice Edinburgh help you
with? Well, pretty much everything actually.
We cover a complete range of topics from debt
to employment to relationship problems, benefit
issues. We can deal with legal issues, small
legal issues, pretty much anything. You name
it, citizens advice are probably likely to
be able to help you one way or another. We
are an organisation that can basically give
advice on just about any subject. Citizens
advice really is a service for everybody.
It's open to everybody. It's free, it's impartial,
confidential; nothing goes any further, and
it's non-judgemental. Mainly we help people
with benefits, we help people with welfare
issues, we help people with immigration, we
do debt, money advice, housing problems, we
can signpost you in relationship issues, health
issues as well. We work in conjunction with
other associations to make sure that if we
can't help you within citizens advice we can
refer you to somebody who can. What we tend
to find is that a lot more people are coming
in with debt issues. We actually have a specialised
money advice team to help those people who
are in debt. We help people with employment
issues and this is another area in which we
have specialists as well. At the bureaux we
have generalist advisers who cover everything,
and they can refer you on to specialist advisers
in employment, debt and also benefit appeals.
So we've got quite a lot of in-depth experience
in the bureau; with our outreach advisers
and the advisers in the bureaux themselves.
We're in 22 locations across the city. The
way you access the service might be different
in some of these areas. Some work on appointment
systems, and some work on drop-in sessions,
so it varies. We've got 22 sites throughout
the city, 5 of those are bureaux, across the
city, and then we've got outreach citizens
advice bureaux, in hospitals, doctors surgeries,
in the sheriff court, and also in the Veterans
First Support that provides advice for services
personnel. So we really extend well into the
community. If you look on the website you'll
see details of each of the offices and how
you can get in touch. Most of our offices
have an advice line as well as an appointments
line, but, you'll appreciate, there's lots
of people with problems in Edinburgh, and
it might be difficult to get through, and
we are predominantly a volunteer-run service,
so, if you find that you're looking to get
some advice on the line and it's fairly simple,
we also have an organisation called Citizens
Advice Direct, which we can link in to, and
you can call, and if they can help you, they'll
help you over the phone, or they may direct
you to a bureau for an appointment. One thing
we do tell the clients is that the earlier
you come to see us, the better. When people
have problems in their lives, then, usually,
they don't go away by themselves, so the earlier
they get advice, then the earlier that they
can start dealing with the situation. Normally
that helps them to get to the solution theyâ€™re
looking for with fewer difficulties. People
can sometimes feel embarrassed about their
problems, but they can be reassured that as
soon as they step over the threshold, our
advisers will do as much as they can to make
them feel comfortable, and allow them to open
up and express their problems and make a start
at resolving them. In fact many people come
in and afterwards feel as though there's been
a burden lifted from their shoulders, which
is very satisfying.
