Loveday Allen of St Fagans national history museum at WCVA's 2013 Volunteering Conference.

1. Supported Volunteering and the
Our Museum Initiative
Creating a Community of Volunteers at
St Fagans: National History Museum
Loveday Williams: “Our Museum” Coordinator, St Fagans: National History Museum

2. What is Supported Volunteering?
Supported Volunteering refers to schemes where volunteers receive
additional support in order to carry out their volunteer roles
A volunteer may require extra support for a variety of reasons. For
instance, they could:
 be lacking in confidence after a long period of unemployment
 have physical disabilities or health conditions
 have learning disabilities
 have mental health issues
 be homeless
 be striving to break patterns of negative behaviour, such as gambling or
drug misuse
 be a non-English speaker
(Volunteer England Website October 2012)

3. What is Inclusive Volunteering?
“Inclusive volunteering is about making
volunteering accessible for everyone. The
Government’s Compact Code of Good
Practice recognises the need ‘to effectively
tackle discrimination to ensure that
volunteering is open to all.’”
(Can Do – A Guide to Involving Young Disabled People as Volunteers;
Leonard Cheshire, Russell Commission, Scope:
http://www.scope.org.uk/sites/default/files/pdfs/Volunteering/can_do_itvol
unteering_toolkit.pdf)

4. By ensuring that your project is inclusive,
you are automatically increasing your pool
of potential volunteers
A more diverse group of volunteers will:
 Offer a wide range of skills, experiences and
perspectives
 Increase the sustainability of your project
 Reflect your community and provide more opportunity to
build partnerships within it
 Broaden your client groups’ understanding of diversity
issues
 Bring new ideas and a ‘breath of fresh air’ to your
organisation
Scope Inclusive Volunteering Companion A toolkit for engaging and supporting
disabled volunteers in your organisation

5. Why Offer Supported Volunteering?
 Supported volunteering allows us to widen
access and offer opportunities to different
audiences
 Supported volunteering enables those
previously unable to volunteer the chance to
engage with organisations and gain new and
exciting experiences and skills
 Supported volunteering will bring added value
to any organisation offering such opportunities

6. Case Study Exercise
 Read the Case Study provided
 Then answer the following questions:
• How do you think volunteering benefited Robert?
• Can you identify the things he’s gained from
volunteering?

7. Approaches to Supported
Volunteering
 Plan in advance
 Establish a programme with realistic targets and goals in mind
 Manage expectations
 Train staff appropriately
 Train volunteers appropriately
 Establish a clear time frame and recruit on a rolling cycle
 Introduce Volunteer Mentor opportunities
 Hold regular supervision sessions
 Establish individual goals with volunteers
 Monitor and review volunteers progress against goals
 Have a beginning and an end
 Help volunteers to progress to new things, possibly
independent volunteering with you or another organisation

8. St Fagans – Our Museum
Building a Community of Volunteers
Case Study

10. The benefits of being inclusive and ways to
develop supported volunteering in your
organisation
Group Work
Methods to including Best Practice

11. Results
 Allows people to take part
 Accessible and inclusive
 Develops skills and experience
 Raises confidence of those that take part
 Adds value to your organisation
 Attracts funders
 Great for raising awareness among staff and
the public at large
 Good for generating case studies and good
news stories

12. Action Planning
What can we do?
How can we do it?
When can we do it?

13. Summary
 It does not need to involve new staff or much additional
resource
 You do not need to introduce an all encompassing
programme
 It is simply good to try and include some of these
methods into your overall volunteer programme
 Trying to develop roles and support structures which
allow for wider access and more people to take part will
help your organisation develop
 It is likely that such an approach would please funders
and attract more external support, be it corporate
volunteers or financial donations/benefits
 Enabling more people to take part brings more
experience and texture to organisations and helps people
to develop

14. Contact Details
Loveday Williams ‘Our Museum’ Co-ordinator
St Fagans, National Museum of Wales
Email: loveday.williams@museumwales.ac.uk
Tel: 029 2057 3456

15. Diolch i chi!
Thank you!
Cwestiynau?
Any Question?