Our City, Our Wellbeing: City Council Explores Volunteering to Support Corporate Strategy
Early 2024, Stoke-on-Trent City Council released their Corporate Strategy for 2024 – 2028 titled ‘Our City, Our Wellbeing’. It explains how they will improve the wellbeing of our residents by making our city healthier, greener, safer, wealthier, cleaner, fairer and more skilled. Within the strategy, it makes several mentions of how volunteering will contribute towards improving the City.
The City Council do have volunteering opportunities, but they had not fully explored the potential role volunteering can play in addressing their priorities. Volunteering within the council was disjointed, and not centrally coordinated leading to a varying quality of volunteering roles.
In May, VAST started to support the City Council in their wish to become more informed about the scope of volunteering across the various council departments. We attended several meetings with staff from the council to explain the support that VAST could offer. After these initial meetings, several departments contacted Sian, our Senior Projects Officer, to discuss their current position and what they wish to work on.
SEND, Information, Advice and Support service
One of these were the SENDIASS (SEND, Information, Advice and Support service) team. The SENDIASS Team had not involved volunteers before but were incredibly keen to do so. Through our support, advice and guidance we were able to assist their Team Lead through our “Introduction to Volunteer Management” training to get a real solid foundation to working with and supporting volunteers. We also provided 1:1 support to develop a specific SENDIASS Volunteer handbook, rather than solely relying on the generic City Council one due to the nature of the roles they would be doing as a volunteer.
“I attended the training that VAST have delivered around the Volunteer Management. This went into great detail about the advantages of volunteering for an organisation, as well as incorporating the laws that are in place, so that there is clear understanding and support. It was delivered in a way that made it very easy to understand with systematic steps. This made it clear of the managerial responsibilities which assisted me in how volunteers can be incorporated into the organisation. After completing the training, it was reassuring to know that I could go back to have documentation checked to make sure it was robust. Sian was really supportive of this, so I knew we could move forwards with volunteering as a service.”
City Libraries
Another Team we have supported is the City Libraries. We have supported them to further develop volunteer opportunities and their approach to volunteering as a whole. When we first started supporting them, they only advertised for Digital Friends and Reading Friends. They had big plans for how they wanted volunteers to be involved within the libraries but were struggling to coordinate this on such a large scale. We provided 1:1 support to their volunteer coordinator to consider what roles they could start to introduce on a quicker scale compared to which roles need a little more thought and time to implement.
With our support, the City Libraries now have a thriving volunteer programme with roles including Creative Writing, Chess, Evening Events, Local History, Poetry, Adult Wellbeing, Bereavement Support, Menopause Support, Dads Support, Perinatal Support and much more! The City Libraries are just in the process of finalising their evidence for the Gold Volunteer Quality Standard Award to demonstrate their best practice and commitment to volunteers.
One volunteer who we placed within the Stoke on Trent City Libraries, Gerard, was originally interested in their Reading Friends role after being let down by another organisation. Unfortunately, Gerard had just missed the latest training for that role however the libraries knew he would be an amazing volunteer so took the time to discuss their other roles available to keep him involved and motivated whilst he waited for the next course. Gerard really loved the sound of the Chess Club and is now a firm feature at each session!
“I've found the team at the Council Libraries so helpful and soon I will be starting a 'Reading Friends' group. This aimed at encouraging lonely and socially isolated people to come along to their library and join a group of likeminded people to listen to someone read or take part themselves. I also have started to organise in Tunstall library, the Chess group every Friday. It's all been so worthwhile. Thanks to all at VAST.”
Libraries Volunteer Coordinator, Mariana said:
“Volunteering in Stoke on Trent Libraries is relatively new concept and thanks to the vital support we received from VAST and their dedicated staff we have been able to develop a successful volunteering programme. We have been able to refine our volunteering offer into a meaningful and impactful experience that empowers individuals, strengthen communities and improves peoples’ wellbeing. VAST are always ready to provide swift guidance, resources, and share best practice. We have received dedicated time and expertise that helped us to identify areas for improvement, streamline our processes while ensuring all we do is volunteer friendly. Now, we are proud to have robust onboarding processes, clear role descriptions, and pathways to support and keep in touch with our volunteers. VAST has demonstrated an uplifting approach to collaboration and there is always something new, creative and inspiring to take away from Volunteer Management Meetings, wide range of trainings, and individual consultations. Stoke on Trent Libraries are looking forward to our future collaboration with VAST. We are excited to welcome more volunteers from VAST, broaden the scope of our initiative and deepen impact we are having on our communities.”
Mariana is also keen to make volunteering within the libraries more inclusive and met with Gloria, our Inclusive Volunteering Project Officer, to discuss how we could work in collaboration with asylum seekers and refugees (AS&R) to improve their English Language skills. They discussed potential ideas around setting up a group, with support and training from the library. They also discussed an offshoot group where AS&R could join a multicultural group to retain, pass down, celebrate, and share their unique cultural ways of life, languages, etc to others. These are work in progress ideas and they will regroup in the Spring to discuss further.
