Keighley volunteer Centre

Volunteer Development Agencies provide support at a local level for individual volunteers and volunteer involving organisations. They have six core functions:

Brokerage, Marketing, Good practice development, Volunteering opportunities development, Policy response & Campaigning and Strategic development of volunteering.

Q. How do I find my local Volunteer Centre?

If you are a not for profit agency in the Bradford District, you should contact us (link) If you are in another area of the country you should visithwww.volunteering.org.uk to find out your nearest Volunteer Centre.

Q. Is it always right to involve volunteers?

Sometimes organisations, particularly charities, feel that because they operate within the voluntary sector they should involve volunteers but this is not always appropriate. There are many good reasons to involve volunteers, i.e. to extend the service offered, to involve the local community, to add value to services; but there are also bad reasons i.e. to replace paid staff, because it looks good, because you feel you should. Before you involve volunteers in your organisation you need to sit down and work out why. Look at your reasons and try to draft them into a statement that explains to your staff, user group and potential volunteers why volunteers need to be involved in the organisation. If you cannot come up with a reasonable argument then the chances are it isn't appropriate to involve volunteers. If you involve volunteers when it is not appropriate then you will find that they are not fulfilled and do not stick around very long, at worst you may find that they feel exploited, that staff feel they are an extra burden and that your user group feels short changed.

Secondly you need to decide whether it is practical to involve volunteers in your organisation. Lots of organisations decide to take on a volunteer to "help out" without planning what their role will be or how they will be managed. What will they be doing, who will supervise them, how will they be trained, where will they sit, is there money to reimburse their expenses? If you cannot answer all of these questions then your organisation probably is not ready to involve volunteers. It is good to be flexible and adapt to the skills and experience of people offering time but you do need some idea of areas of work that are appropriate for and can be completed by volunteers and of the boundaries and limitations of volunteer involvement in your organisation. If you take on volunteers without proper planning and preparation then you are setting yourself up to fail. The volunteer will have a poor experience and may not offer time again and you will feel very disheartened. Your local Volunteer Centre should be able to advise you about setting up a volunteer programme and Volunteering England can provide you with advice, information and publications that you may find helpful.

Q. How can I persuade my colleagues that our organisation would benefit from

taking on volunteers? They say they are too busy.

Being too busy can be a genuine reason for not working with volunteers, but it can also be a polite way of hiding the real reasons. It could be that staff fear that volunteers could be used as substitutes for staff or that they might find it difficult to "control" volunteers. It can be useful to organise a meeting to discuss the issues and bring these fears out in the open. Techniques such as staff talking in pairs and then feeding back to a larger group can encourage more openness.

Once you have found out what the barriers are, you can start to deal with them. A well thought out and well-written and well-understood policy can help to dispel fears. This can cover issues such as: reliability and standards of work, induction, training, support and supervision and procedures for moving volunteers to more appropriate work or requiring them to leave if necessary.

It is also important to acknowledge the skilled and complex role of paid staff who manage volunteers. This could be part of their job description. With the exception of the very smallest organisation, every organisation will probably need one person who is the main volunteer co-ordinator.

On a practical note, it is important to look at space and equipment. Volunteers will need adequate physical space to work in, and access to telephones and computers. It can cause real friction to introduce volunteers to already cramped accommodation.

Q. Is there any maximum hours a volunteer on Job Seekers Allowance can

volunteer for?

No, there are no maximum hours that someone claiming JSA can volunteer for. However, the individual must be actively seeking work and be available for work. Therefore while there is no stated limit to the number of hours a person can volunteer for, it is very likely that a claimant volunteering more or less full time 5 days a week will be considered not to have time to be actively seeking work by benefits agency staff. To be available for work, a volunteer must be available to attend a job interview at 48 hour's notice, or start work at a week's notice.

Q. Should we pay our volunteers expenses?

Volunteers are already donating time to their organisations. It would be wrong to expect them to end up out of pocket - effectively donating money - as well. Payment of expenses is important from an equal opportunities point of view. People on benefits or low incomes should not be excluded because they cannot afford the cost of travel or meals out.

Not paying expenses will make it harder to recruit, as the more barriers you place in the way of volunteers the less likely they are to want to volunteer for you.

Q. We seem to be losing volunteers faster than we recruit them. Where are we

going wrong?

One obvious way to find out why volunteers are leaving is to ask them - exit interviews or questionnaires might reveal issues that need addressing.

Do people know what they're letting themselves in for when they volunteer for you? Does the information enquirers receive give them a clear picture of what will be expected of them when they volunteer? Do they receive task descriptions? It may be worth having trial periods for new volunteers, to give them a taste of their roles.

Another area that might be lacking could be the level of supervision volunteers receive. It's very important that they have adequate feedback and support. On top of this, if they do have concerns it's better if they have a chance to express them, rather than having to bottle them up until it's too late and they've decided to leave.

When people decide to volunteer they will have certain motivations to do so. They want to feel useful, learn new skills, get out of the house and meet people - the list is endless. If these needs are not met by volunteering with you they'll move on to another organisation or into a different activity altogether. Therefore it makes sense to find out what these motivations are, and how well they are being fulfilled. Remember too that motivations change. You might start to volunteer to improve your CV, but stay because you enjoy the company of the people you work alongside.

Most of us like to feel that we're part of something. If volunteers feel marginalised they are less likely to want to stay with you. Make sure that volunteers are involved in the internal life of the organisation - consulted on decisions that affect them, invited to participate in relevant meetings, and included in any social plans.

Lastly there are specific measures to reward or recognise volunteers - certificates, parties, volunteer events. More important than the big gestures though are the everyday things you do to let volunteers know they are valued. A simple thank you goes a long way.

Q. What kind of Police Checks can we get from the Criminal Records Bureau?

There are two levels of checks: The first are Enhanced Disclosures. These are for posts involving substantial contact with children or vulnerable adults regularly training, supervising or being in sole charge of individuals or groups. Also for individuals seeking gaming or lottery licences or judicial appointments. The Disclosures contain details of all convictions current or spent as well as details of cautions reprimands or warnings. They also detail inclusion on the lists held by the Department for Education and Employment and the Department of Health (the Protection of Children Act (POCA) list) of individuals unsuitable to work with children. In addition to this they will also contain any other 'relevant' information held by the police, including so-called 'soft' information.

The second are Standard Disclosures which are for posts involving regular contact with vulnerable people and people entering 'positions of trust' such as accountancy and veterinary professions. The Standard Disclosure will be the same as the Enhanced Disclosure but without the addition of extra information held by the police.

You can contact the Criminal Records Bureau Information Line 0870 90 90 811 or the Disclosure website for more details: www.disclosure.gov.uk .

The above FAQs and more are available on the Volunteering England Website www.volunteering.org.uk

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