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Good Practice







Involvement and Recognition
Volunteer recognition events and awards
Integrating volunteers
Creating volunteer recognition ‘milestones’
Involving volunteers in wider social activities
General

Volunteer recognition events and awards

01 Wai Yin Chinese Women Society: Recognising the contribution of volunteers

Wai Yin recognises the contribution of volunteers in a number of different ways. For example:

02Sports Volunteering North West Ltd: Recognition of young volunteers

The contribution of young volunteers is recognised in a number of ways . For example, in 2005, 350 young volunteers were awarded certificates on achieving 100 hours of voluntary activity and 225 completed over 200 hours. In addition many are nominated for county, regional and national awards, developing the young volunteer’s confidence and offering a sense of achievement. Nominations have included County Sports Partnership Awards, regional and national Sport England and Millennium Volunteer awards, Unsung Heroes Award, Whitbread Young Achiever and also the opportunity to meet The Queen as part of the Year of the Volunteer celebrations. To date this year has seen an increase in the number of sports volunteers nominated for awards at County Sport partnership level and for
MV awards .

Celebrating our Success: DVD Production.
SVNW Ltd has commissioned Acrobat TV Production Company to create a 20 minute DVD which brings to life the incredible impact of the volunteer development programme by interviewing and show casing the young volunteers themselves in action. It will also highlight the aspects of good practice adopted throughout SVNW programmes, which has enabled young volunteers to be recruited, developed, rewarded and retained! SVNW hope to have the DVD available on their website early in 2007.

More Interactive
SVNW Ltd are re launching their newly designed and enhanced web site. It will also at the same time launch its new brand image, which will better reflect the organisations values and purpose. It will have more useful information for both volunteers and volunteer supporting organisations including news, research on the state of sports volunteering in the NW, training and development opportunities across the region, both sport and non sport specific e.g. volunteer management, useful contacts, case studies written by volunteers and a web based forum for volunteers to post their views and suggestions.

Partnerships in Action Event 12 th December 2006
In partnership with Volunteering England, SVNW Ltd are jointly running a half day event at Bolton Arena with the purpose of facilitating partnership working between Volunteer Centres and the County Sport partnerships and Local Authorities development teams. This will strengthen the support available to sports volunteers and enable the volunteer centres to access and understand how sport is organised at a county and local level.

Volunteers Conference: 12 th May 2007
Planning is already underway for the SVNW inaugural volunteers’ conference to be held in May next year. So often conferences are targeted at paid professionals and miss out the volunteers themselves. This conference will provide interactive workshops on latest relevant matters for volunteers in sport such as 2012, legislation, fund raising, volunteer management. It will also provide a platform for guest speakers and case studies as well as providing the opportunity to award the SVNW ltd Regional Sports Volunteer of The Year Award.

 

01 The Envision (Environmental Vision): Recognising the achievements of volunteers

The Envision (Environmental Vision), Project in London is an educational charity that aims to enable young people to realise their capacity to make a difference by supporting them to set up and run their own projects tackling issues of concern in their schools and local communities.

Young people’s achievements are celebrated at annual end of year event in July

Volunteers record and celebrate achievements on their own page at www.envision.uk.net

 

01 Age Concern Islington: Recognition of Volunteers

Age Concern Islington is the primary voluntary sector body working for and with older Islington residents. Its work is about quality of life, seeking to ensure that older people and their carers are able to maintain their self respect and independence, and that they are able to enjoy freedom of choice and equal opportunities.

Age Concern Islington (ACI) knows how important it is that volunteers feel that their efforts are valued, and has developed recognition of volunteers as a good practice, the main features of which are as follows:

 

 

Integrating volunteers

01 OSW good practice guidelines for helping homeless clients to become volunteers.
Off the Streets and into Work (OSW) is a London based project set up to improve volunteering prospects and recruitment practices for homeless people. As part of its work in placing homeless people in volunteers roles, OSW encountered a hurdle. Many homeless organisations in London had a ban on their own clients volunteering. To improve this situation, OSW have done a lot of pioneering work around developing and disseminating good practice around involving clients a volunteers.

As a result of this good work, all the major homelessness organisations in London have overturned their client involvement bans. As well as offering advice, support and training to those seeking to improve the volunteering prospects of the homeless, OSW has produced an online database of good practice. To view, click here.

02 Volunteer Centre Westminster: Involvement of volunteers in decision-making

The Centre runs a volunteer Drop in Centre. Over the course of a week there are 20-25 volunteers working at the Centre, of which 15 are located in the drop in Centre reception area. The reception area is entirely staffed by volunteers who help determine how services are delivered, through involvement in advisory groups and other forums.

Helpdesk volunteers are based in the reception area/drop in shop of the Centre. Generally the role is to assist people find suitable volunteering opportunities. In addition, such volunteers deal with a wide range of telephone and e mail enquiries and ensure that the reception and helpdesk operations run smoothly.

Helpdesk volunteers are a vital part of the Volunteer Centre Team. They are part of the ‘front line’ of the Centre and are the first point of contact for people telephoning and visiting the Centre.

Volunteer Centre Westminster actively seeks to involve volunteers in the running of the Centre and any decisions made which may affect them. The Centre recognises volunteers have valuable ideas and suggestions. The Centre has a number of Team Days a year when staff, volunteers and trustees get together to discuss the work of the centre and to have fun.

The Centre also runs a number of advisory groups within the Centre, some of which are listed below:

03 Age Concern Gateshead: Valuing volunteers

Age Concern Gateshead attributes good retention rates for volunteers to the range of policies and actions that are designed to ensure that volunteers are always aware of how much they are valued. It is typical of their approach that birthday and Christmas cards are always sent to each volunteer. There are social events and the involvement of local dignitaries at award ceremonies. Volunteers were included with staff when the organisation was pursuing the Investors in People Award, thus linking external and internal recognition, and demonstrating high-level commitment to training.

Different ways in which the contribution of volunteers is recognised include:

Age concern regularly communicates through the organisations internal newsletter for Volunteers (‘Connect’). This is sent out every two months.

This has included a Volunteer Survey (with prizes) seeking volunteer’s views on different issues, including improvements to volunteer support, suggestions for the Christmas party venue and service gaps. The survey involved the entire volunteer team of about 190 volunteers and a good response was achieved (60%+). The feedback was overwhelmingly positive and provided project managers with a boost as volunteers clearly valued their involvement in the organisation. Age Concern felt that the survey was an important means of taking on board the views of volunteers and also demonstrating their value to the organisation by dealing constructively with the survey outcomes. Following on from the survey Age Concern Gateshead has put together focus groups made up of volunteers. These groups give the volunteers a voice in the running of the charity. Anne Marshall, the Chief Officer at Age Concern Gateshead commented:

“Volunteering is crucial. The Management Committee always acknowledge that volunteers are just a complete part of the organisation.”

04 Wai Yin Chinese Women Society: Integrating volunteers with staff

Wai Yin seeks to totally integrate staff with volunteers and treat volunteers in the same way as paid staff. This is achieved in a number of ways. For example:

05 The Junction: Involving volunteers and clients in policy development

The Junction carries out regular risk assessments and has a comprehensive range of clear policies on Health & Safety, Expenses, Confidentiality, Child Protection, Conflict of Interest, Volunteering, CRB Disclosure, Protection of Vulnerable Adults, Finance, Quality, Equal Opportunities, Data Protection, Complaints, Harassment, Supervision, User Involvement, Drugs, Lone Working and Sexual Health.

These policies are reviewed at regular intervals. Volunteers become familiar with these policies during training when examples of practice are presented which relate to each policy. When volunteers begin shadowing they then spend time re-visiting the policies and confirming that they have read and understood them. A Practice & Procedure Guide also provides information on operational work with service users.

The Junction takes a “bottom up” approach to policy development so that volunteers and clients have an input. An example of this is the recognition of the need to have a policy on the subject of sexual health. There is also a sub-committee whose function is to carry out a rolling review of policies on an annual cycle.

Accredited training the Junction provides to all volunteers has been developed with their involvement and through their feedback. External training is also provided. Feedback from volunteers about external training also helps to develop future external training packages.

Volunteers are invited to attend all team meetings including volunteer-only meetings and are encouraged to help develop and shape the way services are delivered to young people. Volunteers influence the future work of the organisation through Annual Review and Vision Days, which are attended by all the Management Committee, staff and volunteers. Feedback from volunteers suggests that it is this inclusion and recognition that motivates them to make a long-term commitment to the project.

06 Cheetham Hill Advice Centre: Ensuring a high quality volunteering experience

Cheetham Hill Advice Centre (CHAC) has provided a high quality volunteering experience for up to 15 new volunteers a year for the last 9 years. It is audited by the Adult Education Service to ensure high quality learning opportunities are provided to volunteers.

CHAC ensures that volunteers/mentors are offered regular support and supervision sessions and that their development needs and information requests are met. In this regard Rob Clarke, the project manager at CHAC commented:

“ The volunteers are very much an integral part of our service delivery. The process of integrating volunteers and for them contributing to the development of the project is quite key really. Quite a lot of staff time is devoted to making sure they are properly supervised and supported because we do get a great deal out of them in terms of seeing more clients as a result of the number of volunteers involved.”

Volunteers are supervised on two levels:

Volunteers attend staff meetings and have a representative at the Management Committee meetings. Volunteer meetings are also held every two or three months, to share ideas. This is often combined with a lunch and a training element so that as many volunteers as possible feel that it is worthwhile to attend. Volunteers also attend occasional “Away Days” with staff and management committee members and the volunteers’ contributions have often proved invaluable in determining future planning. For example an Away Day in April 2005 resulted in the creation of a Premises Task Force to address the need for larger premises, and a volunteer with extensive local knowledge of the area joined this team, alongside paid workers and management committee members, to begin to address this issue.

All volunteers and former volunteers are invited to the CHAC Annual General Meeting in November, at which CHAC publicly thank the volunteers and officially award them with their certificates for successfully completing the 10-day in-house advice work accredited training course.

07 Gateshead Access Panel: Focus groups as a consultation base for public authorities and independent organisations

The organisation works closely with local public authorities, as well as independent organisations, advising on all aspects of disability issues. Regular focus groups of disabled people are supported to become involved in consultation opportunities with service providers. Volunteer’s can progress to become involved as GAP representatives, in a range of partnership meetings.

The overall aim of the Focus Groups is to influence policies, practices and services to ensure equality of opportunity for disabled people. Service users opinions and issues have influenced people and policies that have a direct effect on their everyday living.

The Focus Groups are generally held on a weekly basis from about 10.30 in the morning and cover anything, which affects disabled people’s daily lives, with members encouraged to give their personal views and experiences. Meetings can be either formal or informal.

Outcomes for the GAP Focus Groups have been direct influences on service providers such as

Focus Group members benefit from being involved in terms of quality of life issues, confidence building, skill development and progression. From a disabled persons point of view they can learn about communication skills, social skills and meeting skills. The meetings provide peer support from other disabled people. The group encourages personal development and confidence building. The Social Model of Disability is outlined as part of GAP’s induction and this has a very big impact on service users’ self esteem when it is first explained to them – this is often the first step to their personal development.

08 Gateshead Access Panel: Integrating volunteers as members of a team

Volunteers are fully integrated as members of a team. GAP realises that the achievement of its goals is best served by the active participation of disabled people and people with limiting long-term illnesses. The volunteers are encouraged to be involved at all levels in the organisation and within all appropriate programmes and activities. Various mechanisms are in place for volunteers to share ideas and the project has developed a fully inclusive environment for volunteer involvement in all aspects of decision-making.

Key decision making structures include