Volunteering - advice and support

Mee

Hi!


I am doing some volunteering for a number organisations and as a way of building up a enough knowledge and experience to do a graduate course. I'm trying to find forums where volunteers can discuss problems, there seems to be much on 'problem volunteers' but not much the other way around.


In the absence of this, I wondered how others deal with 1. lack of training/induction; 2. health and safety issues; 3. frequent cancellations of volunteering sessions; 4. Just feeling isolated/left out especially Christmas time.


Some of my voluntary experiences have been happy ones - well managed and inclusive. The ones related to my planned career path are making me doubt wherther it is for me...

Savvy_Sue

I think in all cases, the best thing would be to make the organisation aware of how you feel about these issues.

DH is doing some volunteering for a new service and there have been several problems

• keys can't be found, so the service can't run where it's supposed to
• lists of expected clients are wrong, and those not on the list should be turned away - when DH used his discretion it turned out the lists were wrong!
• he's been asked to cover at short notice, got there and found he is not needed
• he's found extra volunteers have turned up on 'his' shift when they're not expected
• the rota comes out without his name on, because he's not been sent the email asking when he's free

And so on.



What he does, every time there is an issue, is email the organisation and explain what has happened. When he can, he suggests a solution.

sangie595

I agree. But equally, I'd have to say that I am concerned that this is happening with several organisations and all of them connected to the preferred career path. Which might suggest a "chaotic" working environment (despite best efforts, this is true of some jobs) or the OP just isn't really cut out for this area of work (or not yet). But that's a rather generic response based on so little information.

Savvy_Sue

It's also possibly worth seeing if there's anything at your local volunteer support service. Google volunteer plus your county / town / area and see what comes up.

As it happens, I was talking to my siblings who volunteer in completely different settings to DH, and they have sometimes run into problems in getting information - organisation says "we need help with X", sibling says "when", organisation says "it's on the website", sibling says "I can't see anything specific to X on the website" and so on.

It's not always easy organising and managing volunteers. No excuse for NOT doing it, just that sometimes it's not easy!

Mee

Thank you for some of the responses.

daytona0

Everyone doubts their chosen career path when they are getting the short end of the straw. It just means you have to reflect on it and figure out what is going wrong and whether the PAID work will actually be fulfilling. At the end of the day but you are a volunteer, and your importance to them is very low. You've gotta keep nagging them for advice and further duties. Show enthusiasm. Get stuck in! They have more important things to worry about than some volunteer who has no real obligation to the company, so they won't help you out that much!

My philosophy with voluntary work is simple:

- You are clocking up hours in a relevant field. Even if you spend all day making cups of tea, you've got experience of working within the sector and that's a strong selling point (just elaborate on the cups of tea!). You can turn round to your uni or another employer and say "I've done 6 months in xxx". Perfect! So what if you haven't actually gained much?! You just blag it!

- You have to be proactive and almost nag people to get the experience/knowledge you need. Not many people will be proactive in helping a temporary volunteer out.

Also don't forget that graduate courses tend to be more academic than practical (few notable exceptions). They also go through course material with you! Unless you are obliged to be working in the sector to register for/complete the course, there isn't really much point in overstaying your welcome in a voluntary position! Get your time, get some knowledge and trust that the uni will guide you through the rest!

Savvy_Sue

daytona0 wrote: »

At the end of the day but you are a volunteer, and your importance to them is very low.

To be fair, that's not ALWAYS the case. We work with a lot of volunteers and work our socks off to make sure they get a good experience, many of them want experience in our field and then go on to study or work, thanks to that.

We also fill a significant number of our vacancies from within our volunteer pool!

But we do sometimes make mistakes or fail to communicate effectively, and we do lose some volunteers as a result.

fishybusiness

At the end of the day but you are a volunteer, and your importance to them is very low. You've gotta keep nagging them for advice and further duties.

Not my experience. I've had 3 volunteers jobs, training and professionalism were just like a paid job.

Volunteers can be valued if you choose the right organisations. I'm back working again and still give up my time one evening a week volunteering as I believe in the organsiation - so it works both ways.

Unfortunately, if the organisation is not willing to change its ways of working, it is time to move on to pastures new.

NeilCr

fishybusiness wrote: »

Not my experience. I've had 3 volunteers jobs, training and professionalism were just like a paid job.

Volunteers can be valued if you choose the right organisations. I'm back working again and still give up my time one evening a week volunteering as I believe in the organsiation - so it works both ways.

Unfortunately, if the organisation is not willing to change its ways of working, it is time to move on to pastures new.

Well indeedy. Where I am there are far more volunteers than paid staff. The service would cease without the volunteers

No one size fits all!

daytona0

Aye, I've also had some good voluntary experiences! Worked for my old Secondary school for a number of months; really supportive, made me a daily rota, all really good. In contrast to one Primary School where they just left me to it. They also used me to supervise a bunch of 7 year olds on a school trip.... despite having been in the school for just 3 days and despite having no formal safeguarding training!

So there's always a good and a bad story to tell!

I just think that, if you are going through a tough time as a volunteer, then you:

1. Need to reflect on whether there is anything you can proactively do to improve it.

2. Should recognise the end goal of it all - it isn't always about gaining experience and knowledge, it is sometimes about clocking up the hours. A graduate course (unless you need to be in a placement) will give you guidance about course material. Uni courses are typically more about gaining a theoretical understanding, and even in practical courses (like nursing) they won't just assume you are an expert already!

fishybusiness

Well indeedy. Where I am there are far more volunteers than paid staff. The service would cease without the volunteers

No one size fits all!

Same here with two of them. One was a national charity with a backbone of paid staff. The other , that I still work for is national, and the volunteers really are the the service, without them no service would exist.

The only one where paid staff outnumbered volunteers was the local council job being part of youth offender panels.

All were professional in their attitude to looking after volunteers, all had amazing training H&S, and were committed to looking after volunteers.

I wouldn't stick around in your shoes.