GoldStar - Snapshot Age Concern - Promoting good practice in managing volunteers from socially excluded groups

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GoldStar - Promoting good practice in managing volunteers from socially excluded groups

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Project	Description
Women's Rape and Sexual Abuse Centre	Supporting over 1,000 victims a year and integrating them as volunteers

The Women's Rape and Sexual Abuse Centre (WRSAC) works with women and girls who are the victims or survivors of rape, sexual assault, childhood sexual abuse, and domestic violence. They aim to relieve the distress and isolation of these women, to empower, train and support disadvantaged, marginalised and isolated women through volunteering, and to raise awareness and educate individuals on related issues. WRSAC currently supports over 1,000 women a year through its various projects and has also developed and delivered numerous multi-agency training events.

WRSAC hold workshops and taster days run by volunteers and workers to encourage and recruit women in isolated rural communities into volunteering. These workshops are designed to be accessible, where women can drop in and meet informally with other volunteers and workers, thereby encouraging, supporting and enabling marginalised and disadvantaged women into volunteering.

Once a volunteer is recruited, they are given training and allocated a ‘buddy’. Newly trained volunteers meet their buddy and the rest of the volunteering group at WRSAC’s infamous ‘Buddy Nights’. Buddies are there to help and enable each volunteer’s smooth induction into the organisation and to offer them support when they begin to undertake Helpline Duties and face-to-face support work. A recent suggestion from the Volunteer Forum is to begin to develop ‘Buddy Circles’, due to the rapid expansion and geographical spread of volunteers.

In addition to the buddy system, volunteers are offered many social events, including a Summer Camp and Christmas Party. WRSAC Volunteers are always publicly recognised and celebrated at the AGMs where a social event or cabaret is organised, and at the Summer Camp and Christmas Party, which are legendary for being a chance for the volunteers to let their hair down and have some fun.

Due to the sensitive and complex nature of the specialised work undertaken by WRSAC it is vitally important that from the beginning potential volunteers have very clear expectations of what is involved. After a volunteer has come through the recruitment and selection process they are given 12 weeks of training to ensure their suitability. At the end of the training the new volunteer signs a Volunteer Agreement, which is a two-way commitment between WRSAC and themselves.

WRSAC has very clear policies on Confidentiality, Health and Safety, Equal Opportunities, Grievance, Child Protection and Vulnerable Adults. The policies are issued and addressed throughout the volunteer training course, and a potential future development is to include them in a volunteer handbook.

WRSAC have a well developed package of training, linked to structured feedback. Training starts as soon as a volunteer is recruited. The course for new volunteers includes 12 weekly sessions of 2½ hours each and a residential weekend after the first 4 weeks. Training is ongoing throughout the volunteers’ experience, with training days and events, and one-to-one supervision sessions for continuous personal and professional development. Volunteers receive a certificate of completion of induction training and of any in-house training they undertake.

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