The gift of your time.
Walnut Avenue would not be able to provide free and low-cost services to its community without your support.
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Be aged 18 or older.
If you are under 18 and would like to volunteer, please contact our youth advocate, Ana Velazquez, for more information on your options.
Pass a criminal background check.
Having a nonviolent criminal history is often accepted.
Physically live in California for at least half the year.
Citizenship status is irrelevant to your eligibility to volunteer.
Have you received services from Walnut Avenue on your own behalf as a survivor?
A minimum of two years must pass between the date of your last service and the start of your volunteering. This is to avoid conflict of interest.
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All potential volunteers and interns must attend a virtual volunteer orientation.
You may attend either a scheduled group orientation or schedule a one-on-one orientation, as staff availability allows. Links for both options are here.
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A criminal background check is required for all of our programs. Learn more about background checks here.
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Some of our programs require you to complete one of the two trainings we offer. Not all programs require one of these trainings.
The trainings include:
Youth advocacy training
Domestic violence certification training
Learn more about the trainings here.
To determine whether or not you’ll need to do a training for a particular program, you may:
Attend a volunteer orientation
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Walnut Avenue collaborates with a number of colleges, universities, and other academic institutions so that students in a variety of different programs can gain practical knowledge and experience as part of their academic learning.
Below is more information about academic credit internships which are specific to some of our local institutions:
If you’re a student of an academic institution looking for ways to get involved in crisis intervention and prevention regarding gendered violence, peer counseling, housing/food insecurity, early childhood education, and/or nonprofit administration, or if you’re a faculty member looking for those opportunities for your students, please contact Marjorie Coffey at mcoffey@wafwc.org.
Please note we will do our best to work with the guidelines established by an academic program. It is the student’s responsibility to receive permission from their institution to earn academic credit with us and to inform their supervisor at Walnut Avenue of their program’s requirements before beginning their internship.
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Walnut Avenue no longer provides a site or supervision for graduate students seeking their MSW, MFT, or LCSW licensing. We now partner with our local Family Services Agency, providing training about domestic violence to their clinical interns in return for referring our program participants to their services for collaborative care.
Equal Employment & Service Opportunity Statement
It is the policy of Walnut Avenue Family & Women’s Center (Walnut Avenue) to provide equal employment, volunteer, and services-related opportunities or ‘EEO’ to all persons regardless of race (including traits historically associated with race, including but not limited to, hair texture and protective hairstyles), color, religion, religious creed (including religious dress and grooming practices), national origin, ancestry, citizenship, physical or mental disability (including HIV and AIDS ), medical condition, genetic information, marital status, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding, or related medical conditions), gender, gender expression, age (please note: 40 years and over is a legally protected class), sexual orientation, family or relationship model, veteran and/or military status, protected medical leaves (requesting or approved for leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act or the California Family Rights Act), domestic violence victim status, political affiliation, and any other status protected by federal, state or local law. Discrimination is prohibited in all aspects of Walnut Avenue business.