Coalition government confirm plans for social action and volunteering http://ow.ly/1OZ6L # Working on the forum. Hopefully to be released this week! # RT @TimetoChange: Do you want to help end mental health prejudice? Make a pledge: http://www.time-to-change.org.uk/ # RT @RNID: Inspiring story from India..Oxford graduate shows that deafness doesn't need 2be a barrier to employment opps http://bit.ly/bxWGRn # Useful page over at @NCVO on ICT resources for the Third Sector http://bit.ly/aDXwKj # RT @NCVO: We're crowdsourcing cuts to the voluntary sector http://www.ncvo-vol.org.uk/cuts please take part [...]

http://twitpic.com/1lh2et – Tanvir Ahmed explains to the workshop the finer aspects of BSL as a language. # http://twitpic.com/1lh2oj – Chris from Surrey vinvolved prepares for his presentation #c4vbarriers # http://twitpic.com/1lh3uj – Ciara & Kathy from Mencap prompt serious thought about the nature of 'disability' #c4vbarriers # http://twitpic.com/1lh4oe – Dawn helps distinguish between social and medical definitions of disability #c4vbarriers # http://twitpic.com/1lhd0e – Chris Philips from Surrey vinvolved talks about the challenges of youth volunteering #c4vbarriers # Just want to thank Ciara & Kathy frm Mencap, [...]

With our Exploring the Barriers to Vounteering event now less than a month away we wanted to make an effort to point out a few of the groups and organisations out there that are dedicated to supporting members of our communities in dealing with and overcoming many of the same life challenges that are the focus of many supported volunteering projects that we meet. To kick off the process we’d like to introduceto an organisation that we  had hoped to have involved in the Exploring [...]

This is not the post that we sat down to plan a few weeks ago. We had planned to spell out the background behind the Goldstar Project and all they had to share with respect to …identifying the barriers to recruiting volunteers from socially excluded groups and offered ways to overcoming them. Sadly, during the last minute checks for spelling and broken links we discovered that the project website was down. We’ve held off until now in hopes that it was just a minor technical [...]

‘It is not only possible for one human being to make a real and lasting difference to another, it is often the only thing that ever does’. ‘Side by Side’, Council on Social Action, 2008 In this continuation of our series of posts highlighting the resources available from the Mentoring & Befriending Foundation (MBF) we look at the Transforming Lives report from late 2009 which starts off with the quote above before moving on to review the evidence for the impact of mentoring & befriending [...]

The Dissemination Manual for the National Peer Mentoring Pilot was published by MBF for the benefit of mainstream secondary schools in line with the Every Child Matters agenda. It breaks down a collection of case studies gathered from the national pilot programme for peer mentoring in schools and highlights the best practice and learning found there.

The Guide to Effective Risk Management is published by the Mentoring & Befriending Foundation and is available as a free download here. This guide is the result of undertaking surveys, site visits, interviews and a review of existing literature & online materials. It covers best general practice in assessing and managing risk as it relates to mentoring and befriending activities which in itself covers a wide range of different circumstances & exposure to risk. As such it may not answer all your questions or provide [...]

A bit of light Friday afternoon reading of particular interest (and value?) to those looking to work with refugees & asylum seekers. The Refugee Awareness Project was the work of Refugee Action and ran from 2005 to 2008. It’s goal was to improve British understanding of and attitudes towards asylum seekers and refugees in the UK. Though the project has now folded its materials and teachings are still available online and amongst the many info sheets, informative maps and general goodies there is a collection [...]

Following on from the recent Volunteer Rights Inquiry  i-volunteer is planning a seminal National Conference for Volunteers under the banner of Voice for Volunteers. Conceived as the first event of it’s kind the idea is to produce an event run, managed and led by volunteers to take place in December of this year. Any volunteers in the UK who would like to be contribute to the planning of how the event will take shop to take a few moments to fill out a short survey [...]

Exploring the Barriers to Volunteering is a chance for volunteer-engaging organisations to come together and explore their options and potential for engaging with groups who are often excluded from meaningful volunteering experiences. The Chances4Volunteering Toolkit will officially be launched at the event and delegates will benefit from a brief introduction to the resource. Workshops Delegates will also be able to attend two of three workshops on the day, each covering a different set of barriers to volunteering: Mental Health (Mark Brown, Editor of OneinFour) Learning [...]