Barnardo's North East is a registered charity covering the area of Northumberland, Tyneside, Wearside, Durham and Teeside. Its aim is to help the most vulnerable children and young people to transform their lives and fulfil their potential. Last year it worked with approximately 13,000 children, young people and their families.
Barnardo's has over 60 services, supported by 15 shops and a small team of fundraisers. The work of the paid staff is supported and enhanced by the involvement of over 500 regular volunteers.
Help is offered when a child or young person's future is at risk from threats such as homelessness, drugs, sexual abuse, disability, unemployment, prejudice, or emotional problems.
The GoldStar Project is called The Party. The origins of the Project is in itself an example of good practice in volunteering. The idea for The Party came from a young person who had been a service user and had moved on to become a volunteer. Having developed skills and experience through volunteering, she wanted to ensure that others could do the same. The resulting Project aims to bring together young volunteers, some of who will also have been service users, to enable them to participate in the development of volunteering opportunities, policies and practices within Barnardo's.
The Party operates on a participation model and most of the young people involved are from Barnardos' services, although The Party is open to all volunteers under the age of 25. The target body of potential volunteers is young people who fall into the Home Office definition of groups at risk of social exclusion. To these groups The Party promotes the benefits of volunteering and facilitates the process of engaging in volunteering activities. The Project utilises the fact of operating in communities to use word of mouth to promote volunteering opportunities effectively in a targeted way, and also involving existing volunteers as "ambassadors".
Acknowledgement of the needs of volunteers to have positive outcomes also leads to high retention rates. Barnardos has introduced personal development plans for volunteers to enhance their volunteering experience and outcomes. The availability within the wider Barnardos organisation is used to enable volunteers to participate at a level they are comfortable with and to move between activities and services as part of their personal development. Training reflects this approach by covering both activity specific matters and general matters.
A key factor for the Project is the provision of high quality support for volunteers. Volunteer managers are brought together in a mutually supportive group where they can share experiences and benefit from "peer counselling". IT is used by managers for recording purposes, one of the aims of which is to make management accountability more direct and immediate.
