About GoldStar 
Visualising progress
Volunteers should be able to visualise their progress. Preparation for this should begin at the recruitment and induction stages in a way that enables the volunteers to see how experience and qualifications will mark their progress along the pathway and again an individual development plan. This needs to be implemented in such way that volunteers from diverse backgrounds can understand the potential progression routes that may be available to them.
Below are a few examples of how other organisations have accoplished this: |
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CAN Footsteps provide a structured basis to monitor, assess and review volunteers’ progress. |
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121 youth befriending have produced a volunteer open learning pack |
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CAN Footsteps provide both mentors and mentees with individual development plans (IDP) in order to monitor, assess and review their progress.
Implementation of the mentee IDP comes after the mentee has been matched to a mentor. At this stage any personal goals that the mentee may have should have been identified. Individual Development Plans exist in order that these goals can be written down and a path plotted towards achieving them. It is suggested that the majority of mentees will benefit from these personally tailored plans.
However, at this stage in their recovery the mentee may not have a clear idea of where they want to go. The desire to move away from the past should be great, but it’s possible that they have not yet identified their goals. Where the mentee does not have existing goals, or is unclear as to their nature, the very first task of the Individual Development Plan (IDP) process is to establish these.
This will require an open and honest conversation between the mentee and mentor and may not be achieved in the very first session. All avenues should be explored along with their consequences, good or bad, and any possible sacrifices required, should be examined.
Having established the mentees aims, the next, and equally important step is to create a means of achieving them. In effect this means mapping a route from ‘here to there’.
In many cases the mentee’s overall aims can seem distant and the prospect of accomplishing them can be daunting. By outlining objectives that have to be met along the way, the mentee can reduce the enormity of the task and see the journey as a series of small and achievable steps.
During the first few months of any recovery process, change is constant and rapid. This change may well give rise to a shift in focus on the part of the mentee. It is of great importance that such adjustments in direction should not be viewed as failure or lack of commitment to original goals, but that these changes are to be expected and are often a positive result of reflection or evaluation. When they arise a new IDP may be started and new objectives set. The preceding IDP should be kept on file and the reasons for the change, as well as an outline of thought processes, should be recorded on the mentees Record of Progress.
121 youth befriending have developed an Open Learning Pack, in order to address the difficulties of organising training at times and dates to suit volunteers. Volunteers can now work at home, in their own time and at their own pace. This has worked well, but the project felt the volunteers missed out on an important part of training which they get from being in a group situation, with associated peer support and sharing of ideas and concerns.
The solution for this has been the development of a 121 Volunteer Preparation pack. All new volunteers receive a pack containing information on befriending and worksheets, which they have to complete and return to the person responsible for this part of the training. They receive brief feedback on their responses and will them be expected to attend further training/support sessions where they will also meet with other volunteers. These sessions are tailored to the groups needs by using the information from the completed worksheets.
The 121 Volunteer Preparation pack covers a number of areas of befriending these being:
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The way it works;
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Dealing with difficult behaviour and creating boundaries;
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Confidentiality, child protection and other policies;
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Coping with different cultures;
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Befriending and supporting Young Carers;
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Befriending and supporting young people with disabilities and special needs;
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How to motivate and set goals.
This approach has been recognised by Home Office evaluators as an innovative way to engage volunteers with busy lives and will hopefully be linked to an online messaging facility in the future
An educational consultant helps to ensure tat it uses the most effective teaching and it is continuously developed to reflect current needs. Participants receive feedback and support on each area before proceeding to the next. They are given a contact name, telephone number and an e-mail address for support and their views and comments on the pack are invited.
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