Newsletter Summer 2002 

Volunteers Week: This years events show more promise than ever.

Website Accolade: This website is a finalist in this years Winners on the Web Awards!

From Shiant Confident: A volunteer's story.

Volunteer Centre Update: The Centre's new Director, Harriet Eadie, reflects on changing times.

Shorts: information nuggets for easy consumption

Striking the Balance: the series examining the involvement of volunteers with additional support needs.

Improving presentations: a brand new service from Volunteer Centre Edinburgh

100 words on screening: the new criminal records disclosure system condensed

Prisoners in the Community: a prison officer gives us the run down on how prisoners are placed with community organisations

Volunteers Week

Volunteers Week (7 - 14 June) promises to be brighter and better than ever. In Edinburgh the Volunteer Centre is organising two major events, the Volunteer Certificate Ceremony and, in partnership with VSO, Volunteering World Edinburgh.

The Volunteer Certificate Ceremony will see 100 volunteers from 30 Edinburgh organisations recognised for their voluntary contribution, with certificates presented by Margo McDonald MSP.

Volunteering World Edinburgh, on Saturday 15 June, is Scotland's largest volunteer recruitment event. The event will attract more than 2000 potential volunteers, with 80 organisations represented .

In keeping with the theme of Volunteers' Week this year - 'Volunteering in the Arts', potential volunteers will have an opportunity to experiment creatively in art workshops run by skilled volunteers.

The event will also feature a programme of talks, the Playbus, video projections and a cafe. Volunteering World Edinburgh takes place in the Assembly Rooms, George St, from 10.30am to 4.30pm on Saturday 15 June.

Website Accolade

Volunteer Centre Edinburgh's website is a finalist in the prestigious Winners on the Web competition. Since its launch two years ago the Volunteer Centre's site has grown in popularity, now receiving around 30,000 'hits' a month.

The site features a database of volunteering opportunities (unique among Volunteer Centres); comprehensive resources for volunteer managers and much more. The recently added news section brings volunteer organisers and the public alike news on volunteering from the national press and the Volunteer Centre network.

As a result of the rebranding of the Volunteer Centre Network, the site will now be addressed www.volunteeredinburgh.org.uk

Winners will be announced on 17 June.

From Shiant to Confident

A volunteer's experience

Two years ago I convinced myself that I was having a quarterly life crisis. In today's society it is possible to suffer the stress of too many decisions: Should I focus on career, children, travel, or should I opt out as a goat-keeping weaver living alone on a remote Shiant island?

I don't expect I'll ever manage to focus on just one of these many options, but I wanted to feel that I was aiming toward something.

I felt I was in a rut and I needed to gain some confidence, acknowledge my skills and build on my experiences. I began volunteering at Stafford Centre. Staff were encouraging and extremely supportive. As a person that cheerfully understates my achievements this proved invaluable in building my confidence. I began to increase my responsibilities in line with my confidence, until now, two years on as a volunteer, I am taking on roles that I never would have broached, prior to volunteering.

Now I am applying for jobs that I am actually interested in, rather than looking at them sideways and wishing I had the confidence to apply. I have gained expertise, experience and bounds of confidence through working with a supportive and encouraging team, of which I now feel a part.

Tanya Bolton

Volunteer Centre Update

Harriet Eadie reflects on life at the Volunteer Centre as she begins her first year as Director.

New name, new logo, new Director and redecorated shop front. April has been a month of change for the Volunteer Centre. But our commitment to volunteers and volunteer involving agencies is as strong as ever. The Volunteer Centre exists to involve more people more effectively in volunteering to help solve real problems and enrich communities.

I am passionate about volunteering. On a daily basis in this organisation I see the power it has to change individual lives. My own experience as a Community Service Volunteer with a mental health project when I was 21 taught me more about what matters than four years at university. Working with agencies from the very small and local to the huge and corporate I see the impact volunteering has on communities. I feel privileged to take over from Nan McKenna the responsibilities of being Director of Volunteer Centre Edinburgh.

My commitment to volunteering is about free will and choice. I believe that volunteering should be about individuals having the opportunity to make a positive difference by giving their time to what they believe in. This is a commitment that it is not always easy to hold on to. There are huge pressures on volunteering from many sources. Many people struggle to find time to volunteer outside work or family commitments. Volunteering agencies struggle to deliver services to targets. Local community groups, often entirely volunteers, struggle against the weight of legislation and formalisation.

The Volunteer Centre has been working for 30 years with volunteers and agencies to try to find ways to balance these different pressures. There are always new challenges This year we are developing an improved training programme for volunteer engagers and new training for volunteers. Our new Resource Unit team leader will have specific responsibility for developing our work with smaller local agencies. The Support and Advice team is developing buddying and pre-volunteering training to support people with a range of additional needs into volunteering. Our on-line database is proving hugely successful in recruiting many new people into appropriate volunteering. I look forward to continuing to work closely with you in supporting and developing volunteering in Edinburgh.

Nationwide supports volunteering
The Nationwide Foundation has identified volunteering as its special area of interest for 2002; focusing in particular on projects involving grass roots community action, promoting social inclusion, involving young people, and prisoners. For full details check out www.nationwidefoundation.org.uk.

Study volunteering online
A new website has been launched by the University of Wales, Lampeter. The site, wordily named the 'Virtual University for Voluntary Sector Studies', has a lively chat room, links and a whole bunch of other useful stuff for volunteer managers. See for yourself at www.volstudy.ac.uk.

Striking the Balance

A regular feature about involving volunteers with extra support needs. This issue: the volunteer's perspective.

  I work with Adult Resource team based at Springwell house Social work Centre. I have been offering support to Joan, a woman with learning difficulties, since the moved into her new flat eighteen months ago.

Joan had volunteered in the past but due to lack of introductory and ongoing support her voluntary placements had broken down.

However Joan being a social person who enjoys meeting people and making a contribution, was determined to it another try.

As a result we contact Sarah at EVE. The three of us spent some time talking about the type of volunteering Joan would like to do and the support she would require to enable her to make a success of it. We decided that Joan would require one to one support for a short while and thereafter would probably manage fine on her own.

Given that Joan's difficulties in the past had stemmed from lack of support I thought it important to negotiate my workload in order to work along side Joan for a few weeks. As it turned out this was time well spent.

Supporting Joan in the first few weeks gave her the confidence to built a rapport with the other team members. It also gave me the opportunity to help her to communicate her skills and to identify tasks that she was comfortable with and enjoyed. Joan is now successfully volunteering without my support and enjoying every minute of it. She feels she:

• Is growing in confidence
• Is making a worthwhile contribution
• Is welcomed and appreciated
• Is making new friends and loves the laughs and the banter
• Is included and valued by her fellow volunteers and the organisation

Joan loves volunteering, it has become an important part of her life and she intends to continue for the foreseeable future.

Lorna Jones
Adult Resource Team, Springwell House

100 Words on Screening

If you have been travelling for the last six months with a wandering tribe of hunter-gatherers in Lapland, shipwrecked, without email, comatose or, God forbid, working in a bank, you might not be aware of the new situation regarding police checks for volunteers.

Here`s how the new system works in 100 words:

A new government agency called Disclosure Scotland administers police checks - now called Disclosures. Voluntary agencies can get free Disclosures via the Central Registered Body in Scotland (CRBS). There are three levels of disclosure: Basic Disclosure, Standard Disclosure and Enhanced Disclosure. Organisations wanting access to Disclosures are required to have the following policies where relevant: A child protection policy, policy on the handling of disclosure information, a policy on the protection of vulnerable adults and a policy on the recruitment of ex-offenders. You can get samples of some of these from www.volunteeredinburgh.org.uk/resources Contact Jill Smith at the CRBS: jill.smith@vds.org.uk, 01786 849777. 

Prisoners in the Community

Craig Mercer, Prison Officer at Edinburgh Prison gives us a brief rundown on how prisoners are placed with community organisations.

The majority of placements in Edinburgh are offered and managed by charities. At present there are 26 Edinburgh organisations offering prisoner(s) places at their premises. At the time of writing we have 30 prisoners on the Community Placement Scheme (at potentially 33 different locations). We also have prisoners doing various courses at Telford College.

Most of the costs involved in placing a prisoner in the CPS are met by the Prison and include such factors as clothing, travel allowances, wages and meals. Where specialist clothing and training is required this is usually provided by the placement concerned. The range of placements available is designed to accommodate prisoners in all age groups, all fitness and all skill levels. Special arrangements are made for prisoners who have been convicted of crimes against children (schedule 1 offenders) or a crime of a sexual nature.

Edinburgh Prison and the placement agency jointly assess a prisoner's progress.

Role of Placement Supervisor

Placement organisations identify a placement supervisor. The supervisor plays a hugely important role in providing stability and regular contact with the prisoner in the early stages of the placement.

The supervisor will be invited to provide written reports on the prisoner's performance and occasionally attend case conferences to deal with any problems. As with all other reports prepared on prisoners, the placement supervisor's report will be an open report to which prisoners will have access.

If the placement doesn't go smoothly the prison or the placement supervisor can end the arrangement.