Lauren Hughes describes how Volunteering Wales Strategic Grants helped Caerphilly County Borough’s ‘Caerphilly Cares’ volunteer scheme grow beyond the COVID-19 pandemic.
HOW IT ALL BEGAN
During the height of the pandemic in 2020, a volunteering ‘buddy’ scheme was set up by Team Caerphilly to support vulnerable people in the community with practical tasks such as shopping, prescription collection or befriending phone calls.
By the summer of 2020, COVID-19 related restrictions eased, staff returned to their substantive posts and the scheme was handed to the newly established Caerphilly Cares team to manage, including a Community Response Volunteer Co-ordinator post managed in partnership with Gwent Association of Voluntary Organisations (GAVO).
Since then, it has evolved into a much wider community support scheme.
EXTENDING THE SCHEME
With the worst of the pandemic over, the Buddy Scheme was no longer fit for purpose, having been set up to offer doorstep support during the height of covid related restrictions.
After discussion, service managers came to feel that it made sense to wind down the Buddy Scheme and reopen a previously established befriending service with Caerphilly Cares, rather than to run two separate volunteer schemes.
Any Buddy Scheme volunteers that were still supporting people in their community were contacted and inducted into the newly launched Volunteer Service managed by Caerphilly Cares.
The current scheme is open both to referrals from social services and to individuals who are unconnected to services and it enables better alignment of processes and procedures related to volunteer management.
As a result of the restructure, two volunteer coordinator posts were created. Covering the whole borough, they promote the service, recruit, induct and supervise all volunteers registered on the scheme.
WHAT VOLUNTEERS OFFER
The newly established service supports vulnerable adults throughout the borough, improving their lives through social interaction. The service aims to reduce isolation and feelings of loneliness and encourages people to participate in activities of their choice.
Volunteers are matched to offer support in one of three ways; on a one to one basis at home or in the community, in residential or day care settings and at volunteer led social clubs.
SERVICE DEVELOPMENT & IMPROVEMENT WITH VWSG GRANTS
The year immediately following the opening of the scheme involved a steep learning curve! We traded working alongside volunteers operating as part of community groups we were supporting, for being directly responsible for the safe recruitment and, importantly, retention of volunteers.
Here, our successful application to the Volunteer Wales Strategic Grant proved invaluable, enabling staff training in Good Practice in Volunteer Management by NCVO (which we highly recommend) and engaging with our local CVC to develop a new council wide Volunteer Policy.
After 12 months of outreach work advertising the service and opportunities at libraries, supermarkets and countless community events, we found that, in the main, if people wanted to volunteer, they would seek us out rather than signing up because of a chance conversation.
To this end, we worked on improving our online presence, making it easier and more user friendly via a new volunteering landing page on the Council’s website www.caerphilly.gov.uk/services/volunteering
THE JOURNEY CONTINUES
The volunteering element of Caerphilly Cares has grown since the inception of the team and as well as the core Volunteer (Befriending) Service now includes; promotion and co-ordination of the corporate Employee Volunteer Scheme, facilitation of an internal network of volunteer hosting departments across the organisation and engagement with local businesses in volunteering for the benefit of the borough.
The journey so far has demonstrated the value of volunteers and positive contribution volunteering can make to service delivery in local authorities.
Lauren Hughes works for Caerphilly County Borough Council, coordinating the volunteering element of ‘Caerphilly Cares’.