Summary of focused discussion Group - 7 February 2024
1 Replies
2 Contributors
Created by Debbie Ambrose Last updated 9 months ago Tags:
Authors' Post
Reply to discussion
AUTHOR
Debbie Ambrose
27 February 2024 at 8:54am
1 Like
Reply to discussion
Viewing 1 - 1 of 1 Replies
Sort by:
06 March 2024 at 9:11am
1 Like
Thanks Debbie, great content :)
Viewing 1 - 1 of 1 Replies
Focused discussion: Effective support for your volunteers
7 February 2024
Keeping in contact with your volunteers
Keeping in contact with volunteers, particularly young volunteers, and ensuring that they are reliable and turn up to do their shift is a constant struggle for many volunteer services. Young volunteers are also more likely to be on shift at the weekend, making it more difficult to keep the communication flowing.
Here are some top tips from our guests around keeping in contact
Social and Face-to-Face interactions
Many of you have coffee and catch-up sessions with groups of volunteers. Encouraging volunteers to come along can often be a challenge.
One organisation found that during their chat sessions the conversation could be somewhat negative. They saw this as an opportunity and made sure that their Engagement Team is now in regular contact with the volunteers, and they now have a chosen topic that will be beneficial and ‘kick off’ the conversation.
More top tips and ideas from our guests
Keeping your volunteers feeling that they are important part of the team
Supporting staff who support volunteers
There is not always the time to give staff individual support and guidance. However, one organisation has just finished writing a ‘How To’ guide. This is yet to be rolled out, but no doubt will be very useful. Other organisations have ‘CAN AND CAN’T DO’ lists to stop volunteers getting involved with regulated activities.
Retaining the boundaries of confidentiality during a Teams meeting
This great question was asked by one of our guests. Some check-in and chats are done by video link, and someone may raise a concern that they would prefer not to be discussed outside of the group. No-one in the group had seen this as an issue yet but could see where there would be concerns.
Confidentiality is usually covered within a volunteer’s initial training so there should be an understanding that anything like this would not go outside of the group.
Useful Links
Find more reports of previous discussion groups by topic in the Forum Library.