Working collaboratively with young volunteers
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So, you've successfully integrated volunteers into your organisation. Realistically a volunteer, especially a young volunteer, won't stay around for ever. This video looks at a few things you can do to make sure that your project doesn't fall flat if a volunteer leaves, and so you can continue to integrate volunteers into your organisation.
The films also discusses ways to work collaboratively with your volunteers. A good way to ensure that volunteers are supported is to create a system where volunteers work together and support each other. This can work especially well for new volunteers or volunteers that need extra help.
The video has been produced by SYN media, a youth-run media organisation that provides broadcast and training opportunities for young Australians.
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Transcript
SYN (syn.org.au) – SYN is a youth-run media organisation that provides broadcast and training opportunities for young Australians.
Narrator: A good way to ensure that volunteers are supported, and to save time as a staff member, is to create a system where volunteers work together and support each other. This can work especially well for new volunteers or volunteers that need extra help.
Jonathan Brown (Education and training manager): It is about working collaboratively. It is about our volunteers getting together and being able to learn from each other.
Narrator: It's also important to offer an ongoing challenge, particularly for those volunteers that really stand out. You might also find that they can get jobs done that you don't have the time or resources for.
Jonathan Brown: My way offering of offering an ongoing challenge to volunteers who are showing real promise is to give them something big and bold enough that they can really take charge of it themselves. So, it is about giving volunteers something autonomous but giving them really clear values of what you want them to achieve. So it's not telling them what to do, but it is giving them the values that we want to attain to, and saying, 'I want you to find the way there. I want you to find the path of how we are going to get to this goal. That is up to you.'
Narrator: So, you've successfully integrated volunteers into your organisation. Realistically a volunteer, especially a young volunteer, won't stay around for ever. To ensure that a volunteer project doesn't fall flat if a volunteer leaves, and so you can continue to integrate volunteers into your organisation, there's a few steps you can take.
First: Identify when a volunteer is ready to leave the organisation.
Joe Toohey (Express Media general manager): I mean, the ideal situation is that a volunteer identifies that themself. That they leave your organisation because they've got maybe an offer of employment in the field they are volunteering in – which is, you know, that's the ideal situation – that they have identified that now I have contributed as much as I think I can contribute in this role and now it is time for me to go on.
Narrator: So that you are prepared it is important that you can pass on their knowledge to any new volunteers.
Joe Toohey: I think documentation is the most obvious thing that needs to happen, you need to make sure that ... I always encourage volunteers and staff members as well, even when they start their position to always be thinking about the way they want to finish that position, as well and always be thinking about what they are going to be handing on. So I think that staff members will often work with volunteers on creating position descriptions and writing down what they are actually doing in their role and making sure that they are keeping track of what they are doing so that there is some sort of handover document you can have at the end of it .
Narrator: Integrating volunteers into your organisation can be a rewarding experience for both the volunteer and the staff.
Joe Toohey: Obviously when you are hiring volunteers you are hiring them to fill a certain position or undertake a certain role that you can't do by yourself. But with that they bring an enthusiasm – volunteers only come to your organisation not because they have to but because they actually want to be there, because they believe in what you are doing and because they are actually interested in the line of work, or the cause or whatever it might be that draws them to your organisation. And I think that, because of that, and because they are there because they want to be there, they bring an enthusiasm and a lot of motivation and excitement to your organisation. And that is infection. It rubs off on staff. It rubs off on other people that work with your organisation all the time. And I think that is really, I find that as a staff member that works with volunteers, that this is a really infectious enthusiasm and makes you remember how great it is to be working in the position that you are working in.
Credits
Writer and Producer: Emma Sharp
Director: Steve Varley
Camera Operators: Brianna Piazza and Magda Makowski
Sound Operator: David Valkenet
Editor: Mike Young
Title Design: Caspian Pantea
Music: 'All Night Long' By the Frowning Clouds
Special thanks:
- Tahlia Azaria
- Joe Toohey
- Dan Pejic
- Ashleigh Briggs
- Michael Sarlo
- Mandi O'Brian
- Harley Hefford
- Jonathon Brown
- Vince Bufalino
- Patrick Bridges
- Mawrgan Shaw
- Clare Wynne
This video was made possible with the support of: The Youth Affairs Council of Victoria, The Victorian Volunteer Portal and the Victorian State Government.
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