The Chances4Volunteering Forum is now open! We hope that you will find it a useful tool in your work. Please visit the following forum post which gives instructions on how to register: Joining Instructions Image Credit Wili_Hybrid

You may or may not have noticed a slight change to the menu options above. The Toolkit has started to take shape! The Toolkit pages are intended to be of use to volunteer managers and organisations wishing to set up a supported volunteering project. The toolkit will be split into sections, defined by the barrier you are working with. For example, there will be sections on Learning Disabilities and Mental Health. In each section there will be three subsections: Useful Links News and Research Resources [...]

At Volunteer Centre Slough we have recently developed a project to support those with mental health issues into volunteering. Over recent years we have worked with local support agencies and the community mental health team with the view to finding sustainable volunteering roles for their clients. We found that many people were open to the idea of volunteering but were unable to take the first step. As a result of a collaboration with our borough council and funding to develop a similar project we developed the [...]

After the Barriers to Volunteering event on the 6th May, we thought it would be a good idea to explain the purpose of this website and what we hope it will offer. Toolkit The toolkit will be accessed from the top of this page in the menu. There will be ‘drop down’ options for you to choose the subject you wish to find information on, and the type of information you are looking for. The topics for the toolkit will be as follows: Learning Disabilities [...]

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 [...]

‘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 [...]