When news about abortion restrictions hit the airwaves, folks want to lend their support. And that’s great!

But, there are a couple things that you should know before you reach out to your local practical support group to offer to become a volunteer.

1. First and foremost - NEVER call a client hotline to offer volunteer assistance. Hotlines are built for people seeking funding and practical support for their abortions. Flooding hotlines with offers to volunteer deprioritizes clients and creates more chaos. To become a volunteer, use whatever online form or contact information is provided on the organization’s website to submit your application.

2. Different organizations will offer different kinds of assistance and there may not be one in your area that provides the kind of services you would like to give (i.e. they only provide travel assistance, but you want to offer housing). Be thoughtful about what the needs are in your area and what you can realistically offer.

3. Not all practical support groups use volunteers to help their clients and in times of crisis (which is generally why the news is big), many are very limited in the number of people they can take on. This is because….

4. There is a significant amount of vetting and training that goes into practical support volunteer programs. It is a huge act of trust to tell someone who is getting an abortion that the car or home that they are entering is a safe one for them to be in. Therefore, it is paramount to the organizations and to their clients that the volunteers who show up in these spaces approach this work with care, kindness, and prioritize the needs and safety of the clients above their own.

   • Once an organization gets your application, many will do a deep-dive on your social media presence, request references, and otherwise ensure that you are who you say you are and that you truly support people seeking abortions. The risk and fear of being infiltrated by people who are actually anti-abortion and seeking to hurt clients and the organizations themselves is high and not taken lightly.

   • After you have been properly vetted, you will have to undergo training of what is expected of you, how you are to interact with clients, and for many organizations, trained on anti-racist principles to ensure that white volunteers are not perpetuating harm, whether explicitly or inadvertently, to people of color seeking abortions. Often these trainings take weeks or months to complete, so do not expect that you will be working directly with clients immediately.

   • If you have found an organization that does NOT take the above precautions, be thoughtful about if or how you should move forward with them. It is generally a red flag when organizations or groups do not have these systems in place.

5. Practical support requests are often not linear or on a schedule. As a practical support volunteer, you may be asked to be available at 2pm Tuesday one week, not requested for months, then asked again for 7pm on a Sunday. That kind of sporadic assistance is not possible or of interest to many people, and that’s fine! But you should be aware.

Maybe you just figured out that volunteering isn't for you. That’s ok! We get it! There’s plenty more help that you can give. Host a fundraiser or donate to your local PSO! Everyone can always use more funding to expand their services.

You can also become an advocate - call your state government and tell them that you support abortion access and want to protect it. The best way to help people is to increase their local access so that they don’t have to travel very far in the first place.

Reach out to contact@apiaryps.org for more information, or if you’re an organization interested in our Volunteer Training Program.