Top Tips on using the Good Practice Bank

We have divided the Good Practice Bank into 'core themes' and 'specialist themes'. Core themes deal with general good practice on managing volunteers such as recruitment or health and safety. Specialist themes focus on more specific topics such as supported volunteering or sport volunteering.

How to use the themes

Each theme has its own index page of resources which will help you in different ways:

Overview

• Each theme starts with a general introduction to the topic.

Articles and case studies

• Each theme contains articles to help users explore the subject from different angles.
• Some themes also include case studies.
• Both articles and case studies come from magazines and websites. Some are hosted on VE's website and some are hosted on external websites.

Example documents

• The Good Practice Bank contains example policies, example forms or leaflets and other materials which have been directly contributed by organisations that work with volunteers.
• Source organisations have given their permission for these documents to be shared with others as examples of good practice.
• All source organisations are credited unless they choose to remain anonymous.

A note on using example documents

• Please bear in mind that they have been created for a specific organisation in a specific context, so should be used as a guide rather than adopted wholesale.
• Whilst we recommend using these examples as tools to help you develop your own policies, if you do wish to reproduce any document in its entirety, you must contact the source organisation for permission.

Template documents

• These include useful forms or checklists. You are welcome to adapt these for your own use.

Links

• Each theme also contains links to other websites which provide relevant or substantial information on that topic.

Publications

• We have listed publications which you can obtain if you want to do further reading around the subject.
• Some are available for free (either on VE's or external websites) and others are priced publications.
  

How to navigate between sections

Each page contains some 'related links'. These are located in the right-hand column of the page. We have added these links to help you find other information which is relevant to the page you're reading.

If you want to look at a different theme, you can use the links in the left-hand column (in orange) or use the drop-down box on the Good Practice Bank welcome page.