Managing Volunteers and Staff
This section includes resources on volunteer management and to help you support volunteers’ and staff members’ wellbeing. It includes numerous links to mental health resources as well as wellness and mindfulness tools individuals can use. It also includes guidance and advice on relevant DBS checks for volunteers and staff as well as useful resources for volunteer training and guidance.
Mental Health
Essential resources available to help frontline teams manage stress, prevent burnout and boost personal resilience.
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MindEd - by Health Education England: free to access e-learning sessions on wellbeing, dealing with stress, building resilience and much more
MIND - Advice and support to deal with adverse mental health
Mental Health UK - Information and support for all things mental health
Burnout - Mental Health UK research to ascertain the public’s perceptions of burnout and the contributing factors, considering the pandemic
Coping with Stress - Downloadable stress management guides, articles around work stress & general tips on how to take care of your mental wellbeing
NHS - Find out how to access NHS mental health services and where to get urgent help
Every Mind Matters - Tips to deal with stress and burnout
Mental Wellbeing Audio Guides - A series of mental wellbeing audio guides to help you boost your mood, between 6-10 minutes long.
Breathing exercises for stress - Breathing technique for stress, anxiety and panic
Mental Health at Work - Resources and toolkits to address and improve workplace mental health landscape
Samaritans - Support to people struggling to cope via phone/email
Muscle Relaxation - muscle relaxation video
Breathing Techniques - Downloadable stress management guides, articles around work stress & general tips on how to take care of your mental wellbeing
NHS - Wellbeing and Resilience
Bite Sized Book Series - access the Burnout - How to avoid it resource
Skills for Care - access the Building your own resilience, health and wellbeing resource
Qwell - Free, confidential online counselling and well-being service for adults
The Self-help App - Helps individuals keep track of how they are feeling, and provides recommendations of things they can do to help themselves cope, feel better and stay safe in a crisis
Unmind - An app aimed at improving mental wellbeing using assessments, tools and training
Headspace - App that provides mindfulness and meditation techniques
DBS Practice: Case Study
Incorporating a good DBS practice is essential for any charity that works with children or vulnerable adults. However, establishing a practice can raise many questions and potential costs as well. Do you have to do a DBS check on every volunteer? What is the best way of doing this? How regularly do you need to do these?
At our food bank, we had almost 60 volunteers who worked for us on a regular basis. We decided that DBS checks were required for all regular volunteers who interacted with food bank visitors (doing registration, helping with support, taking orders), but not needed for volunteers who focused on other areas (packing bags, deliveries, stock rotation etc).
We used an online service, Disclosure Services, to get a standard check for the relevant volunteers (Enhanced DBS check not required, as per government guidelines). We used this one, as it was relatively cheap (currently £33 per application) and easy to do online, but other services are available. A standard check usually comes back within 5 days, so this process was easy to incorporate, once a volunteer had completed their trial period.
Some volunteers had existing DBS certificates from their work or other volunteering roles. In this case, we accepted these existing certificates, rather than complete a new check, but kept a copy of the certificate on file and made a note of renewal date (whilst technically there is no expiry date for DBS, best practice dictates that a certificate should be renewed at least every 3 years).
Volunteer Management and Training Resources
Training Best Practice for Food Banks
Good training of volunteers leads to a smoother operation and also helps people to feel valued and that the role they’re doing is important. In addition to the guidance above, here are some of the things you can do:
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a) Develop an onboarding process for new volunteers. This could include
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Talking through the Volunteer Handbook (see link above on how to write one)
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Having one or two induction sessions where the volunteer experiences different parts of the operation
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Shadowing key volunteers
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Completing a DBS check if required
b). Identify mandatory and additional training requirements
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Mandatory training could include things like Suicide Awareness training for volunteers who are involved in support areas; food safety training for those involved in the preparation of food
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For additional training, many local authorities offer training, often in conjunction with Citizens Advice (e.g. in Wandsworth there is an “Advice First Aid” programme, which covers topics such as Universal Credit, Employment Law etc)
c) Establish regular check ins with all volunteers
d) Hold regular volunteer meetings to give volunteers a chance to feedback on practices and offer ideas. This is also a chance for management to share news and thoughts, plus discuss longer term initiatives such as Cash First.