GoldStar - Snapshot Volunteer Center Sutton - 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
Volunteer Center Sutton	Providing opportunities for all people to benefit the community through volunteering

The Volunteer Centre Sutton, (VCS), is a charity company limited by guarantee based at Sutton in Surrey. Its aim is to enhance community well being in the Borough of Sutton through voluntary action. VCS is a membership organisation whose core work is the recruitment and placement of volunteers in opportunities of their choice within a range of voluntary, statutory and not-for-profit organisations, or with individual service users resident in the Borough.

The activities of VCS range from supporting 230 volunteers who provide driving, shopping, befriending and DIY for older people and those with disabilities, to mentoring for care leavers and young people who are known to the Sutton Youth Offending Team.

VCS has been successful in attracting resources to enable engagement with volunteers who additional support needs, and older people. This includes a Tenants Garden Maintenance Scheme providing gardening services by volunteers with additional support needs for 300 older, vulnerable tenants, and setting up a new Social Enterprise to enable volunteers with additional support needs to participate in supported horticultural volunteering and training.

The main aims of the GoldStar Project within VCS are: to build on and share the experiences and lessons of volunteer management learnt by VCS in the last 10 years; support other organisations to achieve accreditation under the Investing in Volunteers Standard; and encourage other groups to adopt good practice. In this it is concerned to address the fact that many smaller volunteer-involving groups may find that the financial and resource implications of achieving a recognised quality standard will present significant barriers. Therefore, the aim is to provide support and guidance to move volunteer managers towards good practice by providing model policies, procedures, practices and training to enable them to provide better support for their volunteers, and consequently, to enhance recruitment and retention.

The needs and capabilities of potential volunteers are recognised as key factors from the outset and so the Project takes great care throughout the recruitment, training, and matching process. Trained and experienced interviewers are used in selection, and training is related to the work to be done. In addition, steps are taken to ensure that there is a range of volunteering opportunities available, including with external organisations. Volunteers with special needs are given specialist support, even where this may be separately funded.

With large numbers of volunteers and a wide range of services and activities spread across the Borough, VCS sees it as of key importance to get supervision, support, and monitoring right. To this end there is regular and close contact between supervisors and volunteers in order to pick up on issues early. A set of measures is used to involve volunteers that include: consultation and feedback; regular telephone contact with outsourced volunteers; and ensuring that volunteers understand the availability of continued support.
www.vcsutton.org.uk

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