Helping you create impactful volunteer services
Support to ease winter pressures on health and care
We help organisations establish volunteer services that reduce operational pressures
We know the volunteer services we help create make a real difference:
- 85% of staff agreed that volunteers helped them to feel less stressed
- 25% more patients had support to help them eat meals
- 44 minutes - The amount of time volunteer support speeded up patient discharge
- 59% of people on Helpforce's Volunteer to Career programmes went on to secure employment or further education/training in health and care
With our support, health and care organisations can get volunteer roles ready to go live within 8 to 16 weeks
Our proven approach helps you to turn things around quickly
Helpforce’s Adapt and Adopt service has worked with over 50 health and care organisations across the UK, with many coming back to us for further support with new projects.
Overall, we've worked on more than 100 volunteering services. This unique experience and expertise have allowed us to develop tried and tested volunteering models that you can deploy quickly and with confidence.
Our volunteer service development course
Through our Adapt and Adopt service, we run specialist courses that provides health and care organisations with extensive learning and support to roll out impactful volunteering models.
This free course is now open for applications. Scroll down to find out more.
Organisations who work with us say they see the impact of the volunteer role within 7 weeks of the role going live
We have identified four proven volunteering models. Our course will take you step-by-step through setting up any of these models that you want to introduce in your organisation.
1. Emergency department volunteers
Emergency department volunteers reduce pressure on staff, providing reassurance to patients at a stressful time.Key outcome: 85% of staff agreed that volunteers helped them to feel less stressed
2. Mealtime support volunteers
Staff and patient wellbeing improves as volunteers provide companionship and support at mealtimes.
Key outcome: 25% more patients had support to help them eat meals
3. Response volunteers, with a focus on discharge
Health care organisations benefit from flexible volunteers, trained to provide responsive non-clinical support.
Key outcome: 44 minutes - The amount of time volunteer support speeded up patient discharge
4. Volunteer to Career
The Helpforce Volunteer to Career programme allows volunteers to explore a health and care career and builds a future workforce for the health and care sectors.
Key outcome: 59% of volunteers went on to secure employment or further education/training
If you want to get these proven volunteer models up and running quickly, sign up for our course now.
Register your interest on this simple form, letting us know which models you are interested in, and we’ll get back to you quickly, setting out the next steps.
You can also use the form to tell us if you’re interested in different types of volunteering service, as we’ll be adding new model services to our courses over the coming months.
The skills you will develop and the support you get from the course and the Helpforce team
The key elements of the course
We provide a mix of tools and training to help your volunteer service grow in the way you need it too. The support you get includes:
- Making the case to get buy-in for your service
- Online learning, covering project and stakeholder management, as well as the specific skills you'll need to establish your preferred volunteering model
- Facilitated peer-group sessions to share your learning
- One-to-one support from the experienced Helpforce team
- Access to a large peer-to-peer network and wide range of resources
- Learning how to measure the impact of your service
Our approach to help you create impactful volunteer services quickly
Phase 1 - Adopting
Before you start the course, we will help you identify your organisational needs to check that the service model that you choose is the right solution.
Phase 2 - Translation
During this phase you will work through how to make your chosen service model work best in your location.
Phase 3 - Adapting
This is about adapting the model into a workable service for your organisation so your service is ready to launch.
Phas 4 - Embedding
You launch the new service at your organisation. We will help you integrate the service and ensure you can sustain it in the long-term.
Phase 5 - Scaling
Once your new service is running effectively, you can focus on how and when to grow it.
What our partners say
Kristine Davies
Head of Voluntary Services, University Hospitals Coventry Warwickshire NHS Trust