About GoldStar 
Peer and mentor support
Volunteers should be supported through suitable supervision of volunteer managers. This can be done through a variety of ways including newsletters and regular face-to-face contact. The whole volunteering experience should also be supported by peers and, if appropriate mentors.
Below are a few examples of how other organisations have accoplished this: |
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Bolton Lads and Girls club ensures regular contact with the mentor to support them through the volunteering process |
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Somerset Youth Volunteering Network has training and support based on how young people to interact with and from each other. |
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Darlington Association on Disability has set up a peer support group to provide mutual support and identify training needs. |
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Bolton Lads and Girls Club
Bolton and Lads Club have found that a procedure for ongoing and consistent Mentor support and supervision is an essential element in retaining mentors and providing them with a positive experience whilst mentoring for the organisation.
After matching the mentor with a young person, the Mentoring Co-ordinator is in weekly contact with both the Mentor and Mentee to ensure they are meeting regularly and to resolve any possible issues. This weekly contact ensures that both parties are aware of what is expected and Bolton Lads and Girls Club can provide support and direction when required for them. A weekly contact sheet is filled in which is totalled up across the Project. For both the youngster and the volunteer mentor to get the most out of mentoring it is considered that they should meet each week.
In this regard Karen commented:
“In the mentoring field of work we speak to various different mentoring projects and a lot of them are astounded as to how much contact we actually have with our volunteer mentors. We do expect to be able to contact them every week without fail”.
Targets are set to ensure that at least 70% of their matched pairs meet each week. All telephone calls and other forms of contact are logged onto the report sheet function on the Project’s comprehensive database recording system.
After two weeks of being matched up, the Mentor will receive a call from the Volunteer Co-ordinator, to ensure that the early stages of the match are going well, that the support is in place and that the experience of Mentoring is as they expected. This has been identified as an important stage in the volunteer’s life cycle to ensure expectations are met. This is logged.
One month after being matched with a Mentee, the Mentor has their first supervision with their Co-ordinator. This is to formally record how the formative stages of the match are progressing.
Two months after the match, the Mentor is asked to come in for an optional Development Review. During this review meeting training is discussed and how effective it has been practically. Support and the long-term personal development aims of the mentor in regard to further training, career prospects etc. are discussed.
After three months from the first supervision, the next supervision takes place and these then take place every three months. Again, computer-generated reports ensure that these supervisions happen regularly. In addition, Mentors are kept informed of other events such as Mentor Forum evenings, pre-match meetings and social events by weekly telephone contact and letter.
Central to Bolton Lads and Girls Club strategy for the recruitment and retention of volunteer mentors ensures that all volunteers have the opportunity to be involved in the planning, delivery and evaluation process of the project and that there are mechanisms by which volunteers are valued, recognised and rewarded.
The process for involvement starts as soon as a volunteer attends training. Feedback is collated after each session. Peer support and discussion forums are used as the basis to most of training sessions. This allows the volunteers the opportunity to share ideas and experiences and give honest and open feedback. In addition, volunteers are encouraged to provide information relating to their experience as a volunteer on a regular basis via:
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One to one supervision on a quarterly basis with their assigned Mentoring Co-ordinator
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Weekly telephone contact with their assigned Mentoring Co-ordinator
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Six monthly professional development reviews with the Volunteer Co-ordinator
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Attendance of the Volunteer Mentor Forum meetings
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Group Activity sessions
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An Annual Mentor Feedback Questionnaire / Survey
Somerset Youth Volunteering network
The Project adopts an operational philosophy that recognises that young people are more likely to stay and perform well as volunteers if it is an enjoyable experience .
Youth 4 Youth mentoring training draws upon non traditional school based teaching methods such as role play, drama, video making, art and game playing. Adopting such methods make for a more relaxed, fun and interactive training experience which helps to ensure that volunteer mentors keep coming back for more.
The success of this approach is underlined by the fact that the Youth 4 Youth reputation as being a dynamic and fun organisation to be part of, means that two thirds of all the volunteers SYVN work with have had a personal recommendation to join given by a close friend.
Scott Macmillan from SYVN explains that the approach to training adopted by SYVN originally ‘went by the book’ but it was clear that this did not work with young people. The organisation now has a mantra regarding volunteer training, which is:
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Keep it fast
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Keep it fun
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Keep it safe
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Keep it focussed
In relation to keeping it fast it was commented that “young people want to sign up this morning and start this afternoon”. Each training level relating to Youth 4 Youth takes about a couple of hours.
The organisation recognises that young people volunteer to do something they enjoy and feel respected in. Training is therefore not undertaken in conventional classroom settings but in all sorts of different locations, including skateboard parks.
As part of the whole process of keeping young people engaged and ensuring volunteering is perceived as an enjoyable experience the importance of treating paid staff and volunteers equally is also underlined.
Darlington Association on Disability (DAD)
Darlington Association on Disability, (DAD), is a charity led by disabled people to promote independence and choice, and to support disabled people and carers through the provision of services, support, and information. DAD manages a range of services and projects, and places and supports volunteers with external organisations.
DAD has an equal access volunteering project to recruit, support and train disabled people and young people into volunteering. As a good practice in this project, disabled people are actively engaged in the recruitment process. The main features of this best practice are as follows:
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Targeted use of volunteers - a disabled person works alongside the volunteer coordinator to promote volunteering opportunities within areas where volunteering is traditionally under-represented;
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Peer support - a key element of the project is peer support from disabled people who have already overcome barriers of self confidence, negative attitudes, lack of skills, and physical access, in order to volunteer successfully in a range of different roles and organisations; a peer support group has been set up to provide mutual support, identify training needs, and promote their service to other potential volunteers and service users.
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Role models - encourage and arrange for volunteers to act as role models by sharing their experiences with prospective volunteers;
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