What is volunteering for health?
Voluntary Impact Northamptonshire was awarded the NHS Volunteering for Health Programme. Over the next three years, in partnership with the Steering Group, they will be developing a strategy to embed volunteering in Health & Social Care across Northamptonshire.
The project will run until June 2027.
John Soto from Voluntary Impact Northamptonshire fills us in on the challenges and activities, finishing with an opportunity to have an input by completing their survey:
“With the Volunteering for Health project we aim to tackle the following areas:
– Lack of Coordination: Volunteering is fragmented across organisations with no system-wide alignment.
– Diversity Gaps: Volunteer demographics often don’t reflect the communities served.
– Poor Information Sharing: Volunteer opportunities are not effectively communicated across organisations.
– Recruitment & Retention Issues: Difficulty attracting and keeping volunteers in health
Conference and Survey Findings
VfH held a conference and opened a survey to hear directly from organisations.
The conference was attended by 40 people representing 34 different organisations. The engaging discussions, enthusiasm and solution-focused approach of all involved helped to identify areas of improvement. These included:
– Diversity training on recognising and addressing barriers and the importance of continuing to engage with communities to build trust.
-Looking at reframing volunteering opportunities offering flexible, virtual or short-term opportunities to increase accessibility.
– Importance of recognising volunteers’ value and holding social events to increase volunteer retention.
– Qualities needed in a volunteer platform to ensure it is both easy and effective for the organisation while providing a personalised approach for the volunteer.
– Producing clear descriptions to help volunteers understand their role in achieving the organisation’s goals.
– Importance of mental health and wellbeing support for volunteers and staff.
The survey found that most volunteers were sourced though word of mouth, social media and other platforms. The main challenges faced by organisations were retention, lack of interest, adjustments, language, lack of time and unsuitable roles. The main challenges for volunteer diversity were due to need for interpreters and wheelchair accessibility.
While all organisations matched their opportunities to volunteers, only some organisations adapted their roles to suit the candidates. Flexible roles and clearer polices would make volunteering more accessible.
What’s next for VfH?
We are looking to continue to map volunteering in the health sector in Northamptonshire, so we can identify duplication, gaps in coverage, barriers between systems, good practice in volunteering and move towards solutions and drive a strategywith our working groups.
Also, our delivery partners will continue to roll out their projects with our funded Test & Learn initiatives, and through our partners supporting organisations with training and development.”
If you would like to complete their survey please follow the link – Volunteers for Health, Northants. Survey
Or to get in touch with John please email – johnsoto@voluntaryimpact.org.uk
