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Created by Debbie Ambrose
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04 October 2022 at 1:53pm
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General Networking Session Summary

29 September 2022

Thank you to all of you who joined us for this session. We covered quite a number of topics and here is a short summary of the discussion:

Gearing up for a hard winter

  • A new volunteer role is being launched within an Adult Eating Disorder Team - this is creating lots of excitement from the team and is generating other new ideas.

  • New volunteers are being trained in a call centre to dispatch community responders.

  • One organisation would like to start a welfare volunteer service this year as well as a focus on attending to falls patients who can often be left waiting a long time for help.


Using the National Volunteer Certificate to help retain volunteers

  • If you are having difficulty retaining young volunteers, encouraging them to complete this course may help to keep them engaged as well as providing them with an accredited certificate at the end. Some of you are already doing this as a part of the mandatory training as it encourages new volunteers to undertake a minimum of 60 hours’ service.

  • Volunteers need to complete the e-learning modules covering the 6 core learning standards, information can be found here on the e-Learning for Health website:: https://www.e-lfh.org.uk/programmes/volunteer-learning/

  • This short animation gives a quick overview of the NVC. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2w44fq7W74


Taking volunteers on in cohorts versus individually

  • We discussed the merits of recruiting in cohorts (rather than continuous recruitment) and how it can save a lot of time and speed up the onboarding and induction process for new volunteers.


Approaching local colleges

  • We heard from two network members who have approached local colleges and sixth forms to attract young volunteers who know the community.

  • This targeted approach is helping one trust to increase diversity in the volunteer team, particularly by encouraging boys to volunteer.

  • Promoting specific volunteer roles can help to attract young people.


Wheelchairs going AWOL

  • Wheelchairs are being abandoned and not being returned to their rightful place. Sound familiar? One of our network members is looking for a solution. Does anyone use a tagging system or something similar to supermarket trollies with the token slot? If so, which company did you use, was it easy to implement and cost effective? Did it work? If you have any information that you think might be helpful please share on this Forum.

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