Our community volunteers and the support they give
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Our charity is supported by almost 200 amazing volunteers who help us in numerous different ways.
We’re really grateful for everything they do and we simply couldn’t carry on working alongside so many local people without them.
This Volunteers’ Week, we’re shining a spotlight on just some of the ways volunteers help our teams.
Here, Amanda, our head of homelessness, tells us more about community volunteers in our services…
What are community volunteers?
Caritas community volunteers are people who use our services who volunteer to help run the service too. They’re an important part of our staff team, just like all of our volunteers.
Why are they so important?
They are integral to our service delivery model. Because they use the service they know, first hand, what people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness need and how it feels to come into our services.
They not only help to deliver the service, but they also help us to evaluate, plan and improve it.
How do community volunteers help in our services?
Our community volunteers help to deliver all the practical aspects of our service including cooking meals, serving food and drinks, helping to sort donations and to clean and decorate the building, and to keep our gardens looking good for everyone to enjoy.
They also help us to deliver some of our activities including our art, drama and outdoor sessions and our internet café, and they run our chess club too.
We are also training some of our community volunteers to be health champions and to help us ensure that health promotion messages reach everyone who comes into the service.
They take an active role in our service planning sessions too. By sharing their personal experiences of using our services they are able to provide different insights into how we can improve and develop our services and they help us to ensure our services are meeting the need in the most effective way.
They’re also great role models and show other people how they can get involved and improve their skills, confidence and job prospects.
How are people supported if they want to start volunteering?
Anyone who comes to our day centres is welcome to volunteer and we’ll find a role that best suits them. Often, we suggest volunteering to people and encourage them to give it a go, because they may not realise the skills and qualities that they can offer and may have never done any volunteering before.
We run regular induction sessions and there is lots of training that they can do, including getting online qualifications in food safety and health and safety. We also have one-to-one sessions with them to help them to identify and work towards their own individual goals.
What benefits do people report back when they become a community volunteer?
Our community volunteers enjoy being part of a team and get the same satisfaction from volunteering as all volunteers do.
The tell us about how having the opportunity to give something back has improved their self-esteem and that volunteering has given them a sense of purpose and a reason to get up in the morning.
They gain skills and confidence and can go on to find work. But most of all they talk about feeling part of the Caritas family.
What would people do if they were interested in becoming a community volunteer?
There is no formal process to becoming a community volunteer – people just need to come and speak to our staff, and we can get the ball rolling.
We couldn’t run our service without our community volunteers and we wouldn’t want to, as they bring something unique to the team.
We’re very happy to be able to say a special thank you to all our volunteers during Volunteers’ Week.
We’d love to hear from you if you’d be interested in joining our volunteering team too. Even an hour or two of support can make a massive difference so please do get in touch.
We not only have opportunities for individuals, but for businesses and community groups too. You can share your skills and knowledge with others, and also learn new ones from our teams and the people who access our services too.
You can find out more about the opportunities on offer by clicking here: www.caritassalford.org.uk/volunteer/
And if you want to know more about our corporate volunteering, you can read more here: www.caritassalford.org.uk/team-volunteering-days-and-sponsorship/
Or, if you’d like to chat about other ways you can support Caritas through volunteering, why not contact Matt from our team who would be happy to help: Email volunteering@caritassalford.org.uk or call 0161 817 2250.