News

We asked:- should untrained volunteers be allowed to work unsupervised with clients?

These are some of the comments we received:-

“No.  Untrained volunteers should not be allowed to work unsupervised with clients.  We have a duty of care to our volunteers just as we do to our paid staff and clients.

These days it takes a huge commitment to become a volunteer, going through reference and CRB checks, we owe them something in return.

All of my volunteers receive a general induction/training and then further training and supervision in the department they choose to go into.  We always provide on-going support; either one-on-one or group format, there is also additional training if required.”

Pauline James
Volunteer Scheme Manager
Crossroads Caring for Carers, North Somerset

“Absolutely not. The idea does not bear thinking about and surely this does not give any incentive to train a competent workforce in the first place.

Louise Tickle focuses perhaps too much on the altruism of volunteers, ignoring the fact that many of us may be unemployed and need to feel valued.  Not everyone has 'time on their hands' to volunteer. 

As a jobseeker since 1977 and lifelong volunteer, I have found volunteering has helped at least alleviate some of the most dispiriting and de-skilling effects of very long-term periods of serial unemployment.

Richard Katona, volunteering development officer of Depaul Trust, meanwhile appears to devalue the possibility that volunteers’ previous life experiences can equip them / us to be more effective mentors to their/ our service users. "You’re getting someone to undertake a role which may be nothing that their previous life has prepared them for," he asserts.
 
That statement reflects the attitude that "events happen to people". Yes, supervision is indispensable. Yet creatively responding to
previous experience, I believe that "people [can] happen to events." A creative response to experiences we have in common with potential service users through volunteering can help us reframe our past experiences of vulnerability for mutual advantage. We can more genuinely empathise and ‘be with’ the vulnerable people we may serve as mentors.

‘Professional boundaries’ need not bar us from bonding healingly with our clients. Excessive polarisation between professionals and clients, politicians and minorities is a danger I set out to address on my personal web space as a disabled jobseeker and more-supervised volunteering activities. Citing personal experience as ‘case study’ material puts me at risk of being perceived as a self-isolating, whingeing bore, but saves me from betraying client confidences.

Isolation and/or unwanted attention can be very damaging; volunteering with the right employer very healing. Liberal Democrat spokesperson on disability Paul Holmes MP discounted the value of disabled jobseekers as volunteers when he described us as
"economically inactive" [sic]. Islington Volunteer Centre’s Disability Project helped me connect in June 2004 with learning difficulties charity the Elfrida Society. Volunteering there eased my preparation for a 22nd December 2004 interview for paid work, also at Elfrida Society but with a different section.

Beyond the ‘safeguarding’ specifics of supervision in my volunteering, feedback I receive through volunteering makes me feel more ready for employment my experience of the interview and [over Christmas] decision pending time was / has been less intimidating as a consequence."

Alan Wheatley
London

“As a long-term service-user, initially of children and family services and presently of disability services, I would not have wanted untrained and unsupervised volunteers involved in my case except as befrienders.

I can, however, see the value of having volunteers. As it can take a long time for services to kick in, it would be good to have a pool of volunteers to bridge that gap, but they would need to have had sufficient training to understand the needs of clients (especially for confidentiality), be well informed, have ongoing supervision and support to deal with the situations they would encounter and be able to recognise when things reach urgent/crisis status. This training could be offered to service-users who had experienced services and were ready to move on with their lives. They would best be able to understand all the fears and anxieties of the clients and help them to make better use of the services they may be offered. Perhaps this type of trained volunteering would lead to some of the volunteers taking up social work as a profession, which could only be a good thing.

It is easier in the voluntary sector to bring in untrained people. Many of those who do excellent work for charities and support organisations are untrained but are willing to learn new skills as needed. These volunteers also bring their existing skills and abilities and can share them to improve the skill-base of the organisation and/or the clients. This kind of volunteering allows the volunteers to share time with families who are struggling and to learn from those families too. Being from a non-statutory body means that families will find it easier to trust them than if they came from Social Services.
 
As a family that has received support and encouragement from the anti-poverty organisation ATD Fourth World, my three children and I have all benefited from the knowledge and talents of the variety of people we have encountered over the past 15 years. We have each been given help and encouragement to learn within the organisation, e.g. on respite stays at Frimhurst House in Surrey and at Policy Forums in the ATD house in Camberwell, London, as well as through college courses. This made a big difference to our ability to function as a family and reduced our dependence on Social Services provision. I am now volunteering with the organisation and have been part of a project training service-users to go into universities to contribute to the training of social workers.

I am not suggesting that social services can replicate what ATD have done for us, but maybe they should be willing to fund families in finding support in the voluntary sector at places like Frimhurst."

Moraene Roberts
Family Representitive
ATD Fourth World

“If agencies (and the end users of their services) are to get the best out of the commitment that people make to work for nothing, doing something necessary and worthwhile - both for themselves and the beneficiaries of their involvement - it is important to ensure that they are properly managed and supported. So, training can improve and develop skills; supervision ought to highlight problems and weaknesses, and - as for paid staff – this provides an opportunity to address worries and concerns about performance.

If organisations deploying volunteers to provide services don't give time and resources to the support of volunteers, it is more likely that things can go wrong, 'proving' that volunteers are nothing but trouble...."

Les Bright