About GoldStar 
Effective working relationship with clients
Clients are individual service users or beneficiaries or other organisation that are helped or supported by the volunteering organisation. Commitment by the volunteering organisation to work with clients is critical in a number of ways, including a common understanding of what outcomes are intended and eliciting helpful inputs from the client.
Below are a few examples of how other organisations have accoplished this: |
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Hull Community and voluntary service has taken the lead role In developing the compact volunteering code of good practice. |
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Bolton Lads and Girls club has a highly develop referrals system, working closely with variety of agencies and organisations. |
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Hull Community & Voluntary Service
Local Compacts are agreements between local government, local public bodies and voluntary and community sectors, which are designed to address the more enduring problems facing communities, clarify respective roles and generally improve partnership working between sectors.
The Volunteer Centre has taken the lead role in developing the Compact Volunteering Code of Practice within the local Compact, consulting with volunteer involving organisations in both the voluntary and public sectors.
All literature is designed to include people from the widest variety of backgrounds and abilities, with literature in other languages and formats to suit different needs.
The compact for Hull is an agreement intended to provide a framework for developing effective relationships between the public and voluntary and community sectors in the city of Hull. Its objective is to create a level playing field and ensure that services are delivered in the best way possible and to the needs of local people. As part of that process, the Compact sets out the key principles and undertakings, this will underpin the relationship between the public and voluntary and community sectors in the city of Hull.
The Compact was drawn up in partnership, following extensive consultation between the public and voluntary and community sectors in Hull. The Compact is deliberately not exhaustive, but recognises the diversity of the voluntary and community sector and its activities. It is both a general framework and an enabling mechanism that enhances the relationship between the public and voluntary and community sectors.
The Compact has been supported by five codes of practice, covering:
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Funding and procurement;
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Consultation and Policy Appraisal;
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Volunteering;
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Black and minority ethnic (BME) voluntary and community organisations; and
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Community groups.
All of these codes, within the principle of the Compact, have a commitment to equality and diversity.
Bolton Lads and Girls Club
The project has established a highly developed referral system and no longer needs to promote the project to encourage referrals.
Bolton and Lads Girls Club now work closely with a variety of agencies and organisations that refer young people to the project who are experiencing difficulties of whatever nature. These agencies include social services, youth offending teams, schools, youth service, connexions, CAMHS and parents. A growing number of young people are even referring themselves. Karen Edwards, the Mentoring Project Manager at Bolton Lads and Girls Club, outlined their approach towards referrals:
“We don’t have a specific criteria anymore for referrals. Basically our referral criteria is around whether a young person would benefit from one to one support from a volunteer mentor for whatever reason and whatever the issue is, then we will do our utmost to find an appropriate mentor to work with that youngster. So that might be around issues around substance misuse, youth offending or it may be around bullying within school or family breakdown. We have a wide ranging group of young people and therefore we need a wide ranging group of volunteers to be able to have the best matching process in place.”
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