Focused discussion on 2 October 2024

Nurturing your champions: how do you embrace the challenges of relationship building?

Another great discussion by a group of Network members with lots of advice and top tips.

Good communication and building relationships are critical with volunteers and the staff they will be supporting.

• It is important to engage with volunteers on their level. For example, longstanding volunteers might not understand the need for mandatory training when they just want to get on with volunteering, so taking the time to explain “Why” and “What” they will be doing can be the difference between keeping a volunteer and losing them.

• Think about your volunteer demography – what works for one volunteer might not work for another.

• Take the time to invest in relationship building with staff and managers – be clear on what the volunteers are doing, why they’re doing it, and how it can support them and their patients/service users.

• Invest in building relationships with clinical leads and other clinicians (eg. nurses, doctors, etc) – they can help champion your service!

• Use a Teams channel for staff and volunteer leads to ask questions and start discussions.

• Ask your volunteers what they want to get out of volunteering.

• Thank your volunteers and take time to celebrate their achievements. Helping people feel “seen” can build and cement strong relationships. Random gifts, awards ceremonies, anything that makes a volunteer feel valued and recognised really helps. Example, a low-cost initiative that works at one NHS trust is sending “Thank you” cards to volunteers in the post.

• Emails, newsletters to keep volunteers and staff up to date.

• One member clears half an hour each week in her diary and sends out an email to give colleagues a chance to come and meet her for a chat. She has had a couple of people drop in and hopes that if she keeps this regular it will encourage people to use it a bit more.

• If there are major changes happening in your organisation consider one-to-one or small group meetings with the volunteers to let them know what is happening.

• Consider holding workshops to update new and old team members on any changes.

Training

• Intense mandatory training can put volunteers off. Look at your current training modules and programmes. Do you need all of it for every volunteer role?

• Core organisational induction can be the same for staff and volunteers, saving time, and supports building closer relationships between staff and volunteers.

• Ex-professional staff can be a challenge as they don’t understand why they must do training on things they consider themselves already trained in. For example, safeguarding, new legislative requirements, etc.

• Online workshops for volunteer leads.

DBS Checks

• DBS checks may not be required for every volunteer role. Think about what contact volunteers will be having with patients/service users and staff; this can help with determining what you need and why you need it.

• You should always check if your volunteers need a DBS check using resources from Gov.uk and others:

• https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/dbs-eligibility-guidance
• https://onlinedbschecks.co.uk/blog/volunteers-and-dbs-check-eligibility/

Useful links

• Health Improvement Scotland Volunteer Impact Survey - June 2024

• Communication: Sharing Case Studies

• Volunteer training programme