Be honest, be open, and be practical

From an under resourced and underutilised volunteering service - which managed 40 volunteers with the support of a part time Volunteer Coordinator and a Volunteer Lead, to a fully established volunteering service with eight members of staff, Catherine Jowitt shared with us her five key tips that helped her transform the volunteering service at Bradford District Care NHS Foundation Trust.

1 – Be honest about the challenges that you faced

When Catherine engaged with her senior leaders and clinical staff at the Trust’s workshop in 2019 to look at how to strategically grow their volunteering service, she was completely honest with them about the challenges that she faced. It was impossible for 40 volunteers to provide different types of support to 3,000 staff and patients across multiple sites, especially when they only had a part-time volunteer coordinator. Clearly, the supply couldn’t cope with the huge demand. Something must give in.

The honesty paid off, as the conversations at the workshop had led to further engagement on how clinical staff can work together with the volunteering service and that helped them to develop a new working model.

2 – Be open to new ways of working

Bradford District Care NHS Foundation Trust is a mental health and community trust that provides care to patients across over 100 sites and in their homes.

The Trust recognised that the only way to deploy volunteers effectively and safely to the two inpatients hospitals was to employ Volunteer Coordinators to be based at each site. What makes this model unique is that the Volunteer Coordinators are day-to-day supervised by an Occupational Therapist, while line managed by the Volunteer Service Manager. By having a close working relationship with the occupational therapists, the Volunteer Coordinators can quickly identify volunteering roles to support and enhance the therapeutic offers to patients, as well as enable service users who had been discharged and current services users to volunteer as part of their recovery. This win-win approach formed the basis for the volunteering service’s business case, and it was approved and funded by Inpatient Service’s budget. This was a ground-breaking moment as it was the first time the service was funded from a clinical budget and it had opened new funding model for the Volunteering service.

3 – Funding doesn’t always have to come from the top

Catherine said to us: “I think this is the most important realisation after all those years finding resources for the service.

“After having conversations with clinical staff to demonstrate to them the support that volunteers can give them, I often suggest to them that if they have a number of vacant posts, they can repurpose a band 5 post so they can employ a volunteer coordinator for 12 months, who will then be able to help them focus volunteers’ support on some of the challenges that they face.”

This approach has been working so well for the Health Visiting team where they employed a Volunteer Coordinator to support them with the Volunteer to Career programme, as the coordinator was able to help the service to recruit, train, and support volunteers when they reopened the baby clinics post COVID. The success of the Volunteer to Career Baby clinic role has led to an expansion and a permanent volunteer coordinator role to support volunteering across all Children's services. funded by Children’s services budget.

Catherine added: “The reason that this approach appeals to clinical staff is that we were able to demonstrate to them the impact of volunteering, of how volunteers can play a great part in their recovery plan, discharge, supporting people in the community, releasing clinical time and joining the future workforce.”

4 – Consider recruiting a volunteer coordinator with a clinical qualification

All the Volunteer Coordinators at the Trust have a clinical qualification, one is an Occupational Therapist, one a Social Worker and one a Nursery Nurse, along with the Volunteer to Career Lead who is a Health Visitor. Having Volunteer Coordinators with clinical qualifications provides an additional level of assurance for staff and services.

5 – Volunteer to Career is the game changer

The Trust was one of the first health care organisations to be part of Helpforce’s Volunteer to Career programme – funded by the Burdett Trust.

This programme saw great outcomes for the volunteers who aspire to work in the health and care sector. It also generated much conversation across the Trust about how volunteering can be part of the solution to workforce challenges and should be part of workforce strategies.

Catherine said: “Working with Helpforce has contributed to a culture shift in the organisation where volunteering is really seen as part of the solution to future workforce challenges. Prior to the programme, volunteering had not been part of workforce or service transformation conversations, but we have now seen a real organisational shift in the credibility and potential volunteering has in creating pathways into the health and social care workforce - it is no understatement when I say I have never known a project have such a great impact in such a short space of time. We are incredibly thankful to Helpforce for the opportunity and support in delivering Volunteer to Career programmes within our Trust.”

You may also be interested in:

• Volunteer to Career service guide
• Volunteer strategy document
• Back to Health campaign