So, you have thought about Awareness and you have thought about accessible formats for your policies and procedures. So what comes next?

Before you begin your recruitment, you will need to know how to structure that process and what policies and procedures you will need in place.

I remember a time when I was scared to meet new people, afraid of letting them down. I could not commit to anything for the same reason. I was desperate to do something but didn’t know how I could given the state of my mental health. I was never sure how I would be one day to the next and finding someone who understood that would be very difficult.

One of the most important things to consider when moving into the area of supported volunteering, is how to create a supportive and inclusive environment for those volunteers with traditional barriers to volunteering.

There are two key messages to remember here:

1. Keep it simple
2. Be flexible

Supporting someone with a mental health issue as a volunteer is not so different to good practice in all volunteer management. The following tips were put together through Capital Volunteering a London wide project that has now closed led by CSV and the London Development Centre. Do provide access to information around benefits, often people are on disability benefits and a move into volunteering can cause anxiety around this. Do build links with employment and training providers that might help people with training and support [...]

This is another clip from the Volunteer Films project on the Community Channel. I realise that this is a somewhat sheltered situation in that it brings together two organisations – MPEC and Mencap – who each have their own mission to support disabled people but it seems such a simple yet productive idea. If you have not heard of this project yet then please let us introduce Middleton Park Equestrian Centre a few of their volunteers. Things to listen for: talk of finding volunteer opportunities for young people [...]

When we first conceived of this project one of the groups we wondered about was young people. Are they, in terms of common barriers to volunteering, a practical segmentation of our local communities or is the label or youth just too broad to work with? We will be exploring this question early in the New Year with Tim Davies’ peronal blog. Tim Davies of the organisation <em>Practical Participation. In the meantime, here is a video posted on youtube by Volunteering England earlier this year where [...]