The Russell Commission has been set up by the Government to develop a new national framework for youth action and engagement. It is part of Government’s wider programme to promote volunteering right across society, and to encourage active and engaged citizens.
This framework will help increase the level of community participation by young people across the UK and deliver the following tangible benefits:
- Volunteers will develop their skills and contribute in an active way to their local communities
- The capacity of communities and of voluntary organisations will be enhanced
- Society at large will be more cohesive and through skills development the UK’s competitive advantage will increase
Headed by Ian Russell, the Chief Executive of ScottishPower, the Commission will work in partnership with voluntary groups and other stakeholders to identify what works in volunteering, in the UK and abroad. The Commission will bring forward a set of proposals to inform the Government’s National Youth Volunteering Strategy.
Ian Russell, the sole Commissioner, will report to the Home Secretary and Chancellor by March 2005.
In July of this year Ian Russell wrote to Volunteering England as well as other individuals in the voluntary and community sector, young people's organisations, local government, business and other key stakeholder organisations. They were invited to contribute information and views to the Commission to widen the evidence base provided by initial research and inform the consultation exercise that will take place starting in October.
The Volunteering England contribution that will help inform the consultation exercise is included below...
Volunteering England response to the Russell Commission's initial consultation
Whilst government interest in volunteering is valued and recognised by the voluntary and community sectors, it is important to recognise that there is more to volunteering than increasing the numbers of volunteers (the easily measurable statistics) and that work also needs to be done to improve the quality of the volunteering experience.
It is also vital that volunteering is not perceived by the population as a government-controlled initiative. Whilst we do not believe this to be the government agenda, there is a real possibility that this could be the perception of the public and young people in particular. This could act as a deterrent to young people volunteering.
The volunteering infrastructure exists to encourage people to volunteer, to make the process of engaging in voluntarism as easy as possible and to ensure that the quality of the volunteering experience as good as it can be and it is from this perspective that Volunteering England wish to comment.
The volunteering infrastructure in England has evolved over the past fifty years largely without a sense of cohesive strategy or a plan for long-term sustainability. The volunteering infrastructure needs to modernise and reconfigure in order to meet the needs of young people as well as other discrete groups. Volunteering England’s vision is of a modern, dynamic, strategic, co-ordinated and sustainable infrastructure for volunteering at national, regional and local level.
1. Engaging young people in volunteering
a) How do young people become aware of volunteering? What can be done to improve awareness?
For many young people awareness of volunteering happens in a very formal, structured or uniformed context, often driven by the curriculum or the performance of service for others. Once outside this formal context numbers of young people staying or becoming involved declines rapidly.
To improve awareness volunteer-involving organisations should target their recruitment appropriately. To increase the involvement of young people in volunteering you need to get the right information to the right people, this will include both the young people and the organisations that involve volunteers. An effective marketing strategy aimed at young people will take into account their aspirations and preferences and recognise the value they will derive from volunteering. There must be more information targeted at young people in a format that engages them if you want to attract them to volunteering, thinking about the places where young people get their information and through what medium. It is also important to remember that there are significant numbers of young people volunteering - many young people play a full part in their communities, and many of them volunteer. They may not fit or neat definitions of volunteering, citizenship and participation but they are out there and they need to be identified.
b) How do young people find out about specific volunteering opportunities? What can be done to improve access? Would a central hub improve access?
Over 100,000 young people accessed volunteering opportunities through Volunteer Development Agencies in 2003 – accounting for 29% of the total. Young people are most likely to become involved if asked. The availability of new technology means that young people are more likely to interact but not necessarily become active and engaged. We need to develop a complementary infrastructure that will deliver opportunities to capitalise on this interaction.
Central hubs can be problematic without an effectively resourced regional and local infrastructure. Central hubs work most effectively where there are complementary structures in place at a local regional and national level and services are not duplicated.
c) It appears that some young people find the image of volunteering off-putting and a barrier to getting involved - what can be done to improve the image of volunteering?
Volunteering opportunities need to challenge the stereotypes of volunteering and reclaim 'volunteering' by supporting exciting and innovative volunteering opportunities including campaigning and informal volunteering activities
Many volunteer-involving organisations do not have a mission that young people can identify with. For many organisations their mission has become secondary to survival. Young people want to offer their services to an organisation that has a mission that is definable, understandable, supportable and needed. Other determinants of the image of volunteering will include an organisation’s lack of credibility; the fact that opportunities do not match the young persons original motivation to volunteer and the way the organisation presents itself in publicity. However, there is a developing “pick and mix” lifestyle amongst the young which makes them that much harder to target.
At its root this is about finding ways to engage young people on their terms. That means volunteer-involving organisations not relying on their merit or compassion to attract volunteers, but by being prepared to answer a potential volunteer’s question of “what's in it for me?
d) How can we increase the number of young people volunteering from lower and higher income backgrounds?
There are dangers in offering a paid volunteering experience to encourage people from lower income backgrounds to volunteer. The payment of volunteers is appropriate, and has a contribution to make, in certain circumstances as demonstrated by organisations like CSV. Provision exists for the payment of volunteers as voluntary workers within the National Minimum Wage Act. Voluntary workers can be engaged by a charities, voluntary organisations, associated fund-raising bodies or a statutory body and do not qualify for the national minimum wage in respect of that employment if they receive certain prescribed benefits.
However, the principle of non-payment of volunteers is central to the Compact Volunteering code and to the wider sectoral and societal understanding of volunteering.
Additionally we need to develop relevant and credible opportunities that are appropriate to the context. This could mean that they may not fit existing models including the development of opportunities that are not necessarily curriculum or service led, that offer the opportunity for volunteering in a group setting.
e) What are the barriers to engagement and how can they be overcome?
Encouraging more young people to volunteer can often be as simple as removing the barriers that discourage them from volunteering in the first place. Many volunteers will experience barriers to their involvement; some are overt and intentional but more commonly they are unintentional and hidden. For young people these barriers are often perceived as being a more significant obstacle to volunteering than they would be for an older volunteer. Perhaps the biggest barrier to young people getting involved in volunteering is the perception of young people as a homogenous group.
To overcome this the volunteering infrastructure needs to be encouraged to offer more informal opportunities that allow young people to develop their own volunteering experience and then market those opportunities appropriately.
Organisations that want to engage young volunteers should first examine their own attitudes and image to remove any barriers there might be to potential volunteers. Where internal barriers to young people are identified they need to be addressed. For instance a significant attitudinal barrier is the belief is that young people engage in voluntary work as part of their personal development, and take more than they offer. We need to think of young people holistically – as more than just targets for educational or employment interventions. In reality they can offer energy, enthusiasm, skills and experience and they can also be more receptive to new ideas and enjoy the challenges change can bring.
2. The range of young people’s volunteering
a) There is a wide range of volunteering opportunities. Does the supply of opportunities meet the demand from young people – or are there shortages of opportunities for certain groups, in certain areas or sectors? If this is the case, what could be done to increase the supply?
Volunteer-involving organisations need to address specific issues as highlighted previously in this response. Additionally there are shortages of opportunities that are designed, led and owned by young people. Such opportunities need to be flexible, informal and offer the opportunity to volunteer in a group setting. Greater attention needs to be paid when and where such opportunities are offered.
b) Given the breadth of volunteering opportunities, does it make sense to segment the market and if so, how?
Volunteering by young people should not be divorced from the wider volunteering constituency if we are to encourage young people to develop habits of a lifetime and that encourage communities to be both volunteer friendly and volunteer literate.
It is not necessary to segment the market but it is necessary to market opportunities appropriately to discrete groups. Volunteering England believe that in developing new initiatives it should be remembered that volunteering is predominantly a local activity and the importance of the local volunteering infrastructure should be acknowledged, recognised and recompensed.
c) What examples are there of best practice in young people’s volunteering and what are their characteristics?
Support for youth volunteering is a complex picture. Organisations such as the Youth Action Network, Changemakers, the National Council for Voluntary Youth Service all offer different support and encourage a variety of models of youth volunteering and participation. Within government bodies such as the Millennium Volunteers Unit and the Connexions Service all have volunteering within their remit.
At Volunteering England we believe that the most successful and innovative approaches to youth volunteering are the participative models delivered by organisations like the Youth Action Network and REACH. The participative model allows young people to become active in their own time, to volunteer with other young people, gain skills, have fun and put into reality their ideas and priorities that are of benefit to their own communities. Central to this approach is giving young people real opportunities to play a key role in the design, delivery and evaluation of projects
d) What are the obstacles to the development of opportunities and how can they be overcome?
Volunteer-involving organisations require support to develop volunteer policies and an understanding and acceptance throughout the organisation of the volunteers role. The whole recruitment process should be informed by a realisation that the way that an organisation deals with initial enquires is often the first (and sometimes only) chance to communicate how volunteering can be mutually beneficial. During a brief telephone conversation or interview you will have to communicate your commitment to and enthusiasm for involving young people as volunteers. A bad experience at this stage for one young person can generate an enormous amount of bad publicity by word of mouth, and ensure many other young people do not approach the organisation.
The development of an effective marketing strategy aimed at young people will take into account their aspirations and preferences and recognise the value they will derive from volunteering. There must be more information targeted at young people in a format that engages them if you want to attract them to volunteering. This includes volunteer-involving organisations giving some thought to the places where young people get their information and through what medium.
In order to do all of the above, volunteer-involving organisations need support to monitor what motivates young people to volunteer with them, evaluate this information and adapt accordingly.
3. The results of young people’s voluntary activity
a) Young people benefit personally from volunteering, for example, by developing their skills and employability, social networks and from a feel good factor. What could be done to increase the benefits?
We need to acknowledge that volunteering is a reciprocal relationship. We need to ask young people to identify new ways in which benefits to them could be increased and find ways to deliver them.
b) Voluntary and other organisations benefit from the support young people provide. What could be done to increase the benefits to the organisation?
Funding should be allocated to support volunteer-involving organisations to ensure that they have both the time and resources to support and train volunteers and so they can provide a valuable experience for the volunteer.
The national roll-out of an accredited training programme linked to the National Occupational Standards for Volunteer Managers supported by a formal acknowledgement and accreditation of an organisations excellence in volunteer management would recognise and endorse excellence.
c) How could we, as a society, provide more recognition for the achievements of young volunteers?
Research has identified the lack of a high - profile generic national annual volunteering award scheme. Volunteering England would like to develop such an initiative to recognise all volunteers (including young people), Volunteer Managers, Employee Volunteering, volunteering in health and social care, volunteering infrastructure and other areas that become apparent; the scheme should have a local, regional and national awards. It is recommended that such an initiative should be funded through a mixture of sponsorship, grants and income generation.
Volunteering England is the new national volunteer development agency for England which came into operation on 1 April 2004. The agency was formed as a result of the coming together of The Consortium on Opportunities for Volunteering, The National Centre for Volunteering and Volunteer Development England. Volunteering England works to promote volunteering as a powerful force for change, both for those who volunteer and for the wider community.
For further information please contact Andy Forster, Head of Policy at Volunteering England on 0845b305 5528 or by email on andy.forster@volunteeringengland.org
