Prospective Volunteers FAQ

Our volunteers are not expected to teach during exam breaks and holidays - but you must communicate with your school contact to let them know which days you will taking off & when you will be returning. The schools and students are often not aware of the schedule for university students, so please be considerate. During reading week, volunteers are still expected to teach. 

We're so glad to hear your interested! We usually recruit new executive members from our volunteer pool starting February / March. 

1. We'll let you know which positions are available that needs to be filled

2. Based on the available positions, you are highly encouraged to do research into the position you're interested in - that includes reading the position descriptions & emailing / messaging us about the positions. Some of our executive positions require high commitment and we just want to make sure you're dedicated and know what you're getting yourself into!

   1. • Bonus points if you want to shadow one of our exec. meetings to see exactly what we do :)

3. Email us which position(s) you're interested in and your availability for us to set up an interview with you

4. We'll call you letting you know if your application was successful or not!

Yes! We are happy to provide our volunteers as a reference or a reference letter. We just require that you have all your registration / screening components complete (reference to fill out reference form & police check clearance). If you meet this criteria, please don't be shy to send us a quick email / message requesting a reference from us! All reference requests must be sent to us at least 2 weeks prior to when you need to submit them. 

We expect consistent commitment from our volunteers. Only if you have a valid excuse such as a health / medical problem, family emergency, exam time, etc. is it okay for you to miss a lesson. Invalid excuses include studying for an exam, doing schoolwork, other volunteer commitments, etc. 

If you have a valid excuse to miss a lesson, please give sufficient notice and contact your teacher contact, HCMP and/or the parents of your students to let them know.

Our rule of thumb is, try not to miss more than 2 lessons over the whole year. 

Police check: Provide the police check letter from the HCMP to any local police station (go to the Nexus for same-day clearance). They will give you a form detailing the results of your police check. To submit, you can email us to schedule office hours so you can give us the physical copy. You can also scan in a digital copy of your form to our email. 

Waivers of informed consent: One of these forms needs to be completed by a legal guardian of each of your students. The other needs to be filled out by you. Please do not lose these forms once filled out, as they contain sensitive information! It must be submitted ASAP. You can schedule office hours with us to give us the physical copy *** 

Student registration: This form needs to be completed by a legal guardian of each of your students. Parents should be aware of this form by the time you begin your lessons, but if the status of your student registration form is incomplete, give the parents a reminder at the lessons. The form can be found on our website's main page, https://sites.ualberta.ca/~hcpp/ 

Volunteer contract and FOIP: This is usually completed during Orientation, be sure to sign both sides. Only sign the FOIP side if you're okay with us potentially posting photos of you on our social media and website!