A Volunteering Wales Strategic Grant from WCVA has enabled Innovate Trust to launch a new accessible digital volunteering platform for adults with learning disabilities. Zoe Mouti from Innovate tell us more.
At Innovate Trust, we deliver a person-centred approach to care. We work with individuals to live as independently as possible by offering a wide range of care, support services, and activities. Everything we do involves supporting and valuing the decisions of the people we support, their families, and their carers.
LAUNCHING THE VOLUNTEERING HUB
The Volunteering Hub is a website launching at the end of September, and is aimed at adults with learning disabilities to support them to discover volunteering in an accessible way. It will be part of Innovate’s Insight App as well as having its own web address.
The Volunteering Hub project has been widely promoted to ensure a variety of volunteers with learning disabilities were able to engage with co-producing content for it.
CREATING WITH VOLUNTEERS
It’s clear to see that making the co-production of content for the website a volunteering role, known as Creator Volunteers, has had a hugely positive impact on the individuals engaging with it.
They’ve had the opportunity to be included in a new, innovative piece of work and to practise many skills and gain experience in topics they otherwise wouldn’t have had the opportunity to learn about.
A NEW SENSE OF PURPOSE FOR SCOTT
Scott is a gentleman with a learning disability who we knew from a previous supported conservation volunteering project which had sadly come to an end. Scott was struggling with this change. However, since the beginning of this project, he’s engaged brilliantly and discovered a new sense of purpose.
In fact, Scott has done so well with the Hub that we asked him to join us at our stall at gofod3! He felt confident enough to accept this challenge and was fantastic on the day. He worked well with other volunteers and staff and gave some excellent answers to questions from members of the public.
OWEN MOVES OUT OF HIS COMFORT ZONE
Owen is another participant who has really developed during this process, learning to move out of his comfort zone in our monthly Creator sessions.
In one, we wanted to determine the best way of applying for volunteering opportunities through the Hub, which involved trialling emails and phone calls. Owen volunteered to use the phone to call a colleague to role play enquiring about a volunteering role which was a huge step for him as he doesn’t make phone calls independently.
Owen has shown great flexibility through taking part in these varied tasks. The Creator Volunteer role has been shown to be accessible for individuals like Owen and has had a big impact on improving their skills.
FEATURE PACKED
Following input from the Creator Volunteers, the Volunteering Hub has several features such as:
- Accessible information on what volunteering means so that adults with learning disabilities have a greater understanding of what volunteering is and what is expected of them.
- Accessible information on why volunteering is good and how to be the best volunteer. This is something our volunteers with learning disabilities who created the app were particularly interested in.
- Volunteering stories shared by adults with learning disabilities to inspire and motivate others to engage with new opportunities.
- Meaningful volunteering opportunities suitable for adults with learning disabilities.
The website can be used alongside Volunteering Wales to ensure individuals use the platform which is right for them, helping everyone to engage more fully with volunteering.
DEVELOPING A STRATEGY
We have also met with a wealth of organisations to promote the Hub and gather ideas ready for creating new resources.
There has been a positive response from them, and many have shared the barriers they have faced when engaging with adults with learning disabilities. In turn, we’re working on how we can overcome them with our resources.
Zoe Mouti is the Skills and Wellbeing Project Manager at Innovate Trust.
If you’d like to find out more about the Volunteering Hub project, please contact Libby Ball at Innovate Trust at libby.ball@innovate-trust.org.uk
MORE ON VOLUNTEERING WALES STRATEGIC GRANTS
Funded by Welsh Government, the Volunteering Wales Strategic Grant Scheme has been supporting pioneering projects that look long-term at volunteering and how we can unlock its potential.
Grant recipients have shown how strategic thinking about volunteering can be massively beneficial in achieving your organisation’s aims. Here are some of the resources that have been produced: