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Volunteering Strategy

chapter three EMBEDDING A ROBUST CULTURE OF VOLUNTEERING IN SCOTLAND - THE STRATEGY

Introduction

58. The Scottish Executive's vision for Scotland is one where every one of its people can contribute towards, and benefit from, making Scotland a better place to live and work; where volunteering is an integral element of this and is valued and recognised across all sectors as an expression of an empowered people and a force for change; and where anyone who wants to volunteer can do so readily. Stakeholders have, overwhelmingly, welcomed this ambitious aim.

59. Volunteering empowers individuals by improving skills, confidence and self-esteem. It increases social capital and delivers innovative and much needed services to Scotland's communities. For young people in particular it can provide a route into a positive, rather than a negative, future. The needs of volunteers therefore must be at the centre of Scottish Executive work to embed a robust culture of volunteering in Scotland.

60. Turning these aspirations into reality requires significant action including attitudinal and cultural changes. Volunteer Development Scotland's (VDS) investigations into the current position of the volunteer market have given us evidence of some market failures in volunteering and also opportunities for greater efficiencies. These have been considered in the context of Scottish Executive policy areas and the impact of future demographic changes on the market. Implementation of the Strategy will make a significant contribution to achieving a better Scotland through effective volunteering, accessible to all, and at the same time put Scotland at the forefront of volunteer development worldwide.

Volunteers play a key role in promoting lifelong learning
in the public and voluntary sector.
Using new technologies for simulation, interaction and communication,
e-learning enables the learner to control the pace, time and learning.

Aims, Vision and Values

Aim

Volunteering is a fundamental building block of civil society. The Scottish Executive aims to enable leaders within the volunteering and other sectors throughout Scotland to unite as partners to promote and support effective volunteering, accessible to all.

The Strategy supports volunteering that:

• Seeks to build community well-being, sustainability and respects the dignity of all people;
• Helps tackle social, cultural, economic and environmental issues; and
• Builds a more humane and just society.

Our vision is of a Scotland:

• Where anyone who wants to volunteer in their community of place or interest can do so readily;
• Where volunteering is valued and recognised across all sectors, as an expression of an empowered people and a force for change; and
• Which believes that every one of its people can contribute towards, and benefit from, making Scotland a better place to live.

We value:

• Inclusiveness - everyone should be free to volunteer and have the opportunity to do so;
• Diversity - everyone in society has some passion, skill or talent that can be used to enrich someone else's life as well as their own;
• Freewill and choice - volunteering is an act of free choice: there must be no form of compulsion or coercion. As a person may decide to give time, they must also be able to refuse to do so;
• Mutual benefit - volunteering is a shared experience in which helpers and those helped all benefit;
• Empowerment - volunteering can empower people to fulfil their potential and acquire new skills and knowledge, building their capacity and creativity to contribute to the health and vibrancy of their own communities; and
• Impact - volunteering can be a powerful driver of change: social, economic, cultural
  and environmental.

61. Work to achieve this vision of volunteering will be taken forward through four strands of work. Details of the roles and responsibilities of the key players who will deliver these strands can be found in annex C. The strands are complementary and interdependent. For example work to dismantle barriers to volunteering will only reach its full potential in terms of diversifying the supply of volunteers if complemented by action to enable volunteer managers to be more inclusive in the way they work with volunteers.

Strand one: Focusing on Project Scotland and young people

62. In line with the opportunities identified through the evidence base for the strategy, if volunteering is to truly become an integral part of Scotland's culture, action must be prioritised on Scotland's young people. It is known that young people are underrepresented in volunteering. It is also known that direct action targeted at young people, complemented by support to get them involved, works. Action for the younger age group will be important in facing the challenges of sustaining volunteering as Scotland enters a period of dramatic demographic change. Strong support for encouraging people to volunteer at an early age as the starting point for cultivating a lifelong habit of volunteering was expressed through the consultation with stakeholders and the NFO poll on Scottish attitudes to volunteering.

63. There needs to be development in two areas. First, young people must be aware
of volunteering and its benefits at a general level. This links well with developments in citizenship education. Secondly, and at a more focused level, young people should be actively supported to become volunteers. In the long term this will ensure that the people of Scotland are aware of how to access volunteering and how it will benefit them. Achieving this objective will bring much to the young people of Scotland,
and will be a crucial step towards embedding a robust culture of volunteering
in Scottish society. The Scottish Executive will therefore target resources on promoting volunteering to young people to raise awareness of and to support volunteering activity.

64. Project Scotland, complementing existing programmes such as Millennium Volunteers, will be central to this. Project Scotland will give young people of all backgrounds an equal opportunity to benefit from up to a year out to volunteer. The programme will help transform the volunteering landscape of Scotland by creating a powerful volunteering brand which is attractive to its target audience. It will involve organisations in the public, voluntary and private sectors to deliver tangible benefits to volunteers, the organisations they are involved with, and Scottish society as a whole.

Key outcomes

65. Volunteering must be seen by young people from all of Scotland's communities as an attractive, accessible option, which can help them reach their full potential. To achieve this, the Scottish Executive will focus resources on young people, through Project Scotland in particular, and will work with key agencies which support young people to deliver:

• An increased range of young Scots aware of volunteering and the benefits it brings to volunteers, communities and organisations;
• Improved awareness amongst young people of how to access volunteering; and
• More volunteers from socially diverse backgrounds.

Strand two: Dismantling the barriers to volunteering and closing the opportunity gap

66. People in Scotland from all backgrounds and of all ages have a distinct willingness to volunteer, but for many, significant barriers remain. The challenge will be to create the best possible conditions for the development of quality, accessible volunteering opportunities to enable all people to play their part in making Scotland a better place to live.

67. People whose peer groups and relatives do not volunteer often lack knowledge about volunteering and how to get involved. Stakeholders have shown significant support for developing volunteering around key life stages, which would help address this lack of knowledge. Within the workplace, Employer Supported Volunteering (ESV) can provide a means to make volunteering part of the everyday fabric of people's lives, while enabling employers to develop within the Corporate Social Responsibility agenda. People should also be able to find out about volunteering and how to get involved outwith the workplace. Community Schools, employment advisors and service providers for older people for example have the potential to raise awareness of volunteering and direct people to their local Volunteer Centre for support to get involved.

68. A further key element of making volunteering accessible to all the people of Scotland is recognising the resource implications of inclusive practice, in terms of basic provision such as the costs of reimbursement of volunteer expenses, as well as the need for specialised equipment and services to address disability and language barriers. Perceptions about the impact of volunteering on social security benefits, which continue to be a major barrier to those most excluded from volunteering, must also be addressed.

69. For those from disadvantaged backgrounds in particular, the pervasive image of volunteering as a middle-class activity acts as a further disincentive. Much of the action described in this document will help overcome this problem in the longer term, but clearly the way volunteering is marketed will affect the way it is perceived. While many of those involved in the consultation felt that the best response to this would be a national high profile media campaign, others argued that a more localised and direct approach would be more effective. In reality, different approaches are likely to be required for different purposes, and work taken forward through this strategy will encompass the benefits of both approaches.

70. Work to overcome barriers to volunteering will include: promotion of volunteering around key life stages, and further development of the Scottish Executive itself as an employer supporting volunteering; development of the Scottish Executive's grant application process to encourage organisations to include costs associated with basic inclusive practice in their funding applications; and work to enable volunteer involving organisations to access specialist equipment and services to address disability and language barriers.

Target 10 of Sport 21, the national strategy for sport in Scotland,
is to "sustain 150,000 volunteers who are contributing to the development
and delivery of Scottish sport".

Key outcomes

71. Volunteering must be accessible to all the people of Scotland. The Scottish Executive will work with a range of organisations with a direct and indirect interest in volunteering, including employers, and support agencies to deliver:

• Increased range of adults aware of the benefits of volunteering and how to get involved as a volunteer;
• A higher proportion of organisations operating inclusive practice; and
• Improved understanding of the relationship between volunteering and social security benefits amongst potential volunteers and those who advise potential volunteers.

Strand three: Improving the volunteering experience

72. Many of those who do choose to volunteer feel that they are not welcomed by the organisation they wish to help, and are not give the information, support and development they need to contribute effectively. There is clearly a need for improved practice in recruiting and supporting volunteers. If volunteer involvers are to be able to recruit and retain volunteers, then people managing volunteers need to have the skills to develop effective volunteer programmes based on good practice. This means that volunteer recruitment should be inclusive, and that the opportunities themselves should be varied and interesting, accessible, provide appropriate training and skills development, offer recognition, and where practical, be more flexible in terms of when and how often volunteers are needed. In other words, they must meet the needs of the volunteers.

73. Work to take this forward will include: development of the Scottish Executive application form to encourage volunteering involving organisations to incorporate volunteer management training into their budgets; exploration of the potential to mainstream volunteer development practice in the training of professionals such as community education workers and health promotion workers, so that workers come to the field equipped with volunteer management skills; and identification of and responding to gaps in volunteer management training provision.

Key outcomes

74. Existing volunteer management expertise in Scotland needs to be shared to improve the volunteering experience across Scotland as a whole. VDS and the national network of Volunteer Centres will have a key role in delivering the key outcomes of this strand:

• Higher standards of volunteer management in both the public and voluntary sectors;
• Improved opportunities for skills and personal development through volunteering; and
• Experiences that match the needs, aspirations and lifestyles of volunteers.

Strand four: Monitoring, evaluation and ongoing policy development

75. The value of volunteering to both individuals and communities, and hence to the achievement of policy objectives, needs to be recognised across the Scottish Executive. The evidence from the research and from stakeholders gives a clear message that this would improve the resourcing and management of volunteering at the policy implementation stage. Equally, volunteer involving organisations need to be able to understand and respond to emerging policy, and volunteering sector interests need to be represented in policy formation which directly impacts on volunteering.

76. In terms of monitoring and evaluation of volunteering, a number of information gaps have been identified. There is a lack of a national measurement framework to measure outputs from Scottish Executive resources invested in volunteering. There is also a need for improvement in mechanisms to measure outcomes in terms of supply and demand of volunteers, both quantitatively and qualitatively. Development in these areas would provide information on which to base decisions regarding the focus of potential research, including project piloting.

77. Actions to take this forward will include: working with Scottish Executive Departments and Agencies to enable them to consistently recognise and articulate the role of volunteering in policy; consideration of how communication with the volunteering sector on emerging policy developments should be improved; and development of mechanisms to assess the health of the volunteering market, measure the impact of Scottish Executive policy on volunteering, and generate and test potential solutions to develop the best possible conditions for the volunteering market.

Key outcomes

78. Policy and research must support, not hinder, those who work with volunteers, and so ultimately benefit volunteers. As well as developing internally, the Scottish Executive will work with organisations with research interests in volunteering to deliver:

• More effective measurement of policy which impacts on volunteering and Scottish Executive investment in volunteering;
• Better evidence with which to identify priorities for Scottish Executive interventions to embed a robust culture of volunteering in Scotland; and
• More effective Scottish Executive policy interventions to support quality, inclusive volunteering.

Conclusion

79. By facing these challenges now, the Scottish Executive can enable people from every walk of life to volunteer, each achieving their own aspirations and contributing to their communities. Ultimately, this contributes to the well-being of Scotland as a whole. The Scottish Executive wants to enable all Scots to flourish, thrive, and reach their full potential. It is in the interests of this and future generations therefore, for the Scottish Executive to take the lead in embedding a robust culture of volunteering in Scotland.

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