Volunteer Resources

Better Impact is the software HIAS uses to manage our volunteer opportunities, roles, and events. Volunteers use it to keep track of registered events, see a visual schedule of monthly events, manage their own profiles and keep them up to date with skills, interests, and personal goals, and track their volunteer hours. Important files and documents may also be uploaded to Better Impact for volunteers to have easy access to them.

When you log in to Better Impact, you should see blue tabs at the top. When you click the tab labelled “HOURS,” you will be at the correct page to log your hours. First, you can select the appropriate activity from the drop-down menu (under the bolded words “Direct Service Opportunities”). Then, select the date and the number of hours you spent with or on behalf of your program participant partner, or engaged in other volunteer events. Please note that you may have to click “Active” rather than “Recent” next to “Activity” in order to view and log hours for your role.

Logging hours gives us a record of your volunteer time with us. If you need a reference or want to refer back to your volunteer role at HIAS, you will have a log of every activity and meeting you’ve engaged in. Furthermore, logging hours allows us to track the time distributions that work for our volunteers (whether people are generally meeting during the evenings, on a specific day of the week, once a week for two hours or split over two days a week, etc.). It helps us monitor the effectiveness of our program and highlight the achievements, accomplishments, and dedication of our HIAS volunteers.

This instructional video provides additional guidance on how volunteers can log onto their Better Impact page, sign up for events and activities, log hours, change their profile info, and contact HIAS staff.

In any service, interaction, or appointment, always encourage self-sufficiency. It might feel helpful or more efficient to do tasks for the program participant, but it is always better to do tasks with them instead. Your efforts should educate and empower the program participant. We encourage you to draw healthy boundaries. The program participant should learn how to complete tasks independently so they can remain in control of their own life. Help establish a lifestyle that can be maintained without your assistance.

Your program participant is the best person to make decisions that affect their life. Be careful not to interpret a lack of English language skills as a lack of experience or capability. Always try to think about asylum seekers through a strength-based lens, instead of focusing on roadblocks or challenges. Create tangible goals with them that tap into their strengths, and work towards their short-term goals and long-term aspirations.

Many HIAS program participants have experienced trauma associated with threats, violence, and persecution in their home countries. Forced migration for our clients and their loved ones constitutes an added layer of trauma and loss and may manifest in a relationship in different ways. Trauma affects an individual’s physical, emotional, cognitive, and spiritual well-being and outlook. Some behaviors associated with trauma may include excessive fear and worry, avoidance and withdrawal, sadness and hopelessness, and physical symptoms and impaired immunity. Helpful responses to trauma include being consistent and predictable, listening and offer non-judgmental support, following your partner’s pacing, creating a calm space, and practicing self-care.

If you are concerned about a particular program participant partner at any time, please contact a HIAS volunteer coordinator. We respectfully request that you not ask them about the particulars of their legal case and/or their experience of persecution. If a program participant feels comfortable enough to share details of their legal case and/or their experience of persecution, practice empathetic listening whenever possible rather than shutting down uncomfortable conversations. Be honest about your own limitations with your partner.

Asylum seekers come from a variety of cultures, traditions, legal systems, family structures, and living conditions that may conflict with their new environment in the United States. Sometimes families need to make considerable modifications to their ways of life in new and unexpected ways. It is important to respect their culture and tradition, while still ensuring that they understand their new environment and its rules and policies (e.g. laws, leases, contracts, bill payments, expectations around child protection, etc.).

Both you and your program participant partner will approach your relationship with a set of expectations. Remember to meet them where they are. Be open to the type of relationship that may be formed and be patient with your partner and with yourself. Approaching your relationship with humility, openness, and understanding will yield the best chances of a strong, meaningful connection.

In forming a relationship with a HIAS partner, it is important to consider your association as a volunteer and the space that both you and your partner occupy in your identities. Racial, linguistic, educational, socioeconomic, and other factors impact your partner’s perspectives about your role and capacity for social leverage. Centering activities around identified goals and your partner’s needs and requests will help you engage with your partner mindfully and respectfully. Always reach out to a volunteer coordinator with any questions or concerns about your relationship with your partner.

Be aware of potential situations in which a client partner may feel compelled or obligated to act outside of their comfort zone out of a perceived need to meet your expectations or those of other volunteers. For example, expressing a strong preference to meet in person may place your partner in the position of balancing the health and safety of their family while trying to meet their volunteer’s expectations and wishes. Consider the purpose and goal of the function and how it would benefit your program participant partner before proposing any activity.

Furthermore, HIAS volunteers are asked to refrain from purchasing items for their partner, or inviting them for meetings at their home (a neutral meeting place, like a public library, is a great option!). If clients request in-kind donations, volunteers can (with the client’s permission) share this with a HIAS volunteer coordinator.

Your program participant partner may or may not have work authorization. They may choose to share this information with you during a meeting or as you work together on career readiness. Be cognizant that a client’s lack of work authorization may affect the kinds of mock interviews or job application materials you work on collaboratively.

Finally, romantic or sexual relationships of any kind between volunteers and program participants are expressly prohibited.

Throughout your time as a volunteer, it is important to track your volunteer hours and donations as directed and instructed by HIAS staff. Please note that all material donations are tax deductible. HIAS staff can provide tax receipts upon request.

Because the immigration and asylum legal process is specific and complicated, the wait time varies, often dramatically. Our program participants may fall under one of several categories: asylum seeker, humanitarian parolee, SIJ (special immigrant juvenile), TPS (temporary protected status) holder, and more. They may be applying for asylum either affirmatively or defensively. They may have been in immigration detention at a point in their immigration journey, or they may have another legal issue come up at some point while waiting for their claim to be adjudicated. All of these factors and more affect the asylum timeline. Please be assured that our immigration attorneys have years of wisdom and knowledge, and they are effective legal advocates for their clients.

A person’s specific legal status, history of detention, and their filing timeline, and more can all affect the wait time for an asylum seeker to receive their work permit. Asylum seekers are prohibited from applying for their work permit for at least 180 days after they file their asylum claim, and many asylum seekers face further delays. Our program participants work with their attorney to get their work permits as soon as possible for their individual timeline. If your partner has questions or frustrations regarding their work permit wait time, they should consult their attorney.

When a HIAS volunteer is paired with a partner for long-term direct service, they commit to a working relationship of six months. At the end of six months, the Volunteer Coordinator will schedule a check-in meeting, during which both the volunteer and program participant will provide feedback. Following the six-month meeting, the volunteer may choose to: 1) continue working with the same partner, 2) close the current experience and ask to be matched with a new partner, or 3) stop volunteering at HIAS altogether.

We know it feels frustrating when you have invested in a relationship with someone, and it might seem as if they are not as invested because they take a long time to respond to your phone calls, texts, and emails. For a number of reasons, this is an issue that many volunteers face at some point during their volunteer experience — it may have to do with the program participant’s schedule, feelings of anxiety and overwhelm, or differing communication norms. If a program participant has not responded to continued attempts to contact them for one week, please reach out to the volunteer coordinator.

Although we expect you to commit to at least six months of service, we recognize that unexpected circumstances may occur that impact your availability. If this is the case, the first step is to reach out to the volunteer coordinator before reaching out to your partner. We will work together to let the program participant know you can no longer volunteer.

We know that you have dedicated many hours to HIAS as a volunteer and we are so appreciative of your dedication to supporting our work. Because of the nature of the work that we do and HIAS’ needs-based approach to direct service, we cannot guarantee that you will match with a program participant within a specific time frame.

Program participants are referred to the volunteer program by the social services team or their attorney. The volunteer coordinator meets with the client to determine their specific needs and goals. We then look through our volunteer cohort and decide on a match based on the volunteer’s specific skills and experiences, such as one’s job or fluency in the client’s native language. This could happen two weeks from the general training, or sometimes months, depending on needs and how many referrals we receive. We do not guarantee a client match when volunteers join the program, and we hope you will get involved with other projects as you await a match.

The number of translation/interpretation opportunities depends on the number of requests we receive from attorneys and other HIAS staff. The volunteer coordinator receives requests and then sends out a list of assignments to all interpretation/translation volunteers of the specifically requested language, and assignments are taken on a first-come-first-serve basis. The best thing to do is to check your email frequently so that you can respond to requests as they arrive.

This is a very common challenge that asylum seekers face – HIAS attorneys are very diligent about filing for work authorizations, but there is an average wait time of several months. Unfortunately, there is nothing HIAS attorneys can do to expedite the process.

You can work with your partner to identify what their career goals are and set them up to hit the ground running when their authorization arrives. That could involve doing research on certain fields together, working on application materials such as a resume and form cover letter, arranging for informational interviews in relevant fields, or gathering materials like references, proof of address, etc.

We have a Housing Resource Guide (also available in French, Spanish, and Dari upon request) that you can use with your client partner to guide your housing search. Please also notify your volunteer program staff contact if your partner is struggling to find housing, so that we can coordinate with our staff case managers who are very knowledgable about affordable housing and what resources may be available. As a team, we will work together to explore housing options for your partner.

The work you’re engaged in with your client partner may be slow going! Goals like becoming fluent in English, getting a job like the one they had in their country of origin, or building a new community take a long time to achieve, and working towards them with no smaller intermediary goals may make both you and your partner grow frustrated. It’s important to set goals that allow both of you to see the process you are making.

You can use this worksheet to set general goals with your client partner, and this worksheet to set goals with your partner if you are focusing on English Language learning

When working with an interpreter, when speaking in a language that is not one of your first languages, or when you’re getting to know each other, it may take some time to begin comfortably communicating with your partner. This is normal, and silence and pauses are okay. In addition to getting comfortable with silence, you can come with topics for discussion prepared, while understanding that your partner likely has their reasons for their communication style that could be related to their set of experiences and cultural norms. If you are concerned that your partner is not comfortable with you after several meetings, you can ask a member of the volunteer program staff to check in with them about your match.

If you have questions about best practices as a volunteer interpreter or translator, you can take a look at our Interpretation and Translation handbook.