The Voice of Volunteering, Issue no 3, April 2007

In This Issue

-Features     -Events & Training      -The Center's News

New Minister for Volunteering
The Centre for Volunteering

Following the March state election Premier Morris Iemma has appointed Ms Linda Burney as the new NSW Minister for Volunteering. Ms Burney's portfolio also includes Fair Trading and Youth.

Did you know that volunteers are not covered by workers compensation?
The Centre for Volunteering

Because volunteers are not covered by workers compensation, The Centre for Volunteering strongly advises all organisations with volunteers to obtain volunteer accident insurance. There are two very important points to remember:

1. You must report all incidents involving serious injury, illness or fatality to WorkCover. (Please refer to Clause 344 of OHS Regulation 2001.)
2. You must phone WorkCover IMMEDIATELY on 131 050 as urgent investigation might be needed.

It is also advisable to notify your volunteer accident insurer if a volunteer is injured.

Visit the WorkCover website www.workcover.nsw.gov.au and familiarise yourself with The Community Services Safety Pack (Publication Number 4421) to find out your obligations as an employer of volunteers.

Fido proving a valuable recruitment method for members
The Centre for Volunteering

The Centre's Fido Skilled Volunteer Search is a service which allows members to advertise for volunteers free-of-charge in the Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) on Saturdays (inside back page of the News Review section) and on Mondays (inside back page of the main news section). Priority is given to positions requiring certain skills, qualifications or experience.

Five volunteer positions are advertised on Mondays and three on Saturdays. In addition, details of these positions are posted weekly on the Fido website (www.fido.com.au) and are emailed to 1100 people registered on the website to receive the weekly jobs e-bulletin. Read more

A day without volunteers
Lisa Saremel, The Centre for Volunteering

It's the height of summer in Sydney. It's 39° C on a smoky, cloudy, grey day in February with scorching hot winds ideal for accelerating fires sparked early in the day by irresponsible arsonists. By lunchtime, an infernal blaze is threatening parts of the northern suburbs.

Meanwhile, thousands of housebound elderly people are without food in their own homes, dozens of sports fans at a stadium and hundreds of young people at a music festival collapse without any immediately available medical attention, and every person in crisis who dials a counsellor for help hears nothing but a recorded message. Read more

Australian Journal of Volunteering Student Prize 2007
Volunteering Australia

The Centre of Philanthropic and Nonprofit Studies (CPNS) at the Queensland University of Technology, together with Volunteering Australia, is very pleased to announce the second annual prize for the best paper on volunteering written by a university student. The prize is $500 and the winning entry will be published in the October issue of the Australian Journal of Volunteering. The closing date for entries is 31 July 2007.

View the guidelines for contributors or read the 2006 winner Danielle Leigh's paper Third cultured volunteer tourists and the process of re-assimilation into home environments.

Other papers this year explored the relationship between paid and volunteer staff, volunteer adventures, personal experiences and the role of volunteers. Students are welcome to write on any aspect of volunteering. Firsthand experiences are welcome as long as the emphasis is on critical analysis to support the points being made in those stories and experiences.

To enter or find out more please contact the Editor.

April Networking Breakfast - Policies and procedures: How can we develop them painlessly?
Tuesday, 17 April 2007, 8.30am–10.30am
Level 2, 228 Pitt Street, Sydney

Often we see policies that seem to be the length of a novel! This forum will give an overview on how to decide what policies should be in place, how much information should be in policies and how to develop procedures to support each policy. The discussion will be facilitated by Lynne Dalton, CEO, The Centre for Volunteering.

Numbers are limited. It is essential that you RSVP to attend and order breakfast in advance. Breakfast costs $5 and includes fruit salad, raisin toast and muffins. Tea and coffee are free.

Email Janine Cowen or phone her on 02 9261 3600.

Certificate 1 in Active Volunteering
School of Volunteer Management

This qualification is a nationally accredited course designed especially for volunteers. It builds competencies generic to all types of volunteer roles. These competencies are thus relevant to volunteers working in any field.

The qualification can be gained through any of the following flexible delivery methods:

• as part of your organisation's induction program and/or ongoing training
• by correspondence
• through a series of workshops
• by submitting a Recognition of Prior Learning application by completing a portfolio of volunteer hours, work undertaken and qualifications

The Certificate in Active Volunteering provides the opportunity for volunteers to progress through their experience and undergo formal training relevant to paid employment. The focus of the qualification is skills that are generic and transferable.

For more information, phone the School of Volunteer Management on 02 9261 3600.

Free Job Skills Training
School of Volunteer Management

Do you want to update your business skills? Do you have people volunteering with you who need some training?

Job Skills Training is a government initiative which aims to assist eligible individuals to develop their employability by helping them gain a qualification at Certificate II level. Australians aged 25 and over who do not have Year 12 or equivalent or Certificate II level are eligible to apply for free job skills training.

This self-paced course is conducted by correspondence through the School of Volunteer Management. Support is provided.

Apply today!

The Law and your organisation - Case studies needed

The Centre for Volunteering would like to obtain information from you regarding any legal situations your organisation has experienced in the following areas:

1. Volunteer insurance claims.
2. Public liability claims by or against volunteers.
3. Workers compensation in relation to volunteers.
4. Contact with or by WorkCover agents regarding volunteers.

Your information will help The Centre develop a comprehensive knowledge base of legal case studies affecting the NSW not-for-profit sector. Your experiences will help further support The Centre's case for a NSW online legal resource.

All responses will be kept strictly confidential. No names of persons or organisations will be recorded in any case study records.

Please email Jan Cosgrove or phone her on 02 8267 6307 to register your interest.

Law Report: It's a bit of a minefield

The Centre for Volunteering is pleased to release its findings on the legal issues and needs survey conducted last year with valuable support from The Law and Justice Foundation of NSW.  For the first time in NSW, we have obtained information from 283 of our member organisations about the types of legal issues volunteering organisations face, the resources they currently use to deal with them and ideally the resources organisations would like to access to better help them with any type of legal issue associated with volunteering. 

Our findings show that the main legal areas are OH&S, child protection and police checks, personal accident insurance and civil liability. As well, The Centre has identified the range of resources from the most used (pro bono lawyers) to the least used (government legal websites). All our organisations identified that the greatest legal barriers they face are the lack of specialised volunteering legal services and their own lack of knowledge of services available. The preferred legal resources for the future are a free online legal website and an 1800 hotline. The Centre will also develop a case study booklet which will be published online. 

Our thanks go to the volunteers who helped at every stage of this project and special thanks to the volunteer organisations that answered our questionnaire.

Download It's a bit of a minefield

Request for organisations to participate in Project Evaluation Phone Questionnaire

Most of The Centre's members have expressed that project evaluation is an area that they find problematical. Thus The Centre will shortly be conducting a phone questionnaire in order to collect information about the types of assistance that The Centre could provide to its members regarding project evaluation. 

If you are interested in participating in a 20-minute phone questionnaire, please email your details to Kady.

First Corporate Breakfast for 2007

A very successful corporate breakfast hosted by Freehills at their Sydney office was held on Wednesday, 14 March. The breakfast was attended by 28 representatives from 20 local, national and international organisations.

Guest speakers were Anthony Longland from Freehills and Bill Downing from United Way Sydney (UWS).

Anthony gave an overview of the various legal issues surrounding employee volunteering programs and highlighted the potential responsibilities that corporations must consider when undertaking such programs.

Bill presented an overview of the work of United Way Sydney. He also announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between UWS and The Centre for Volunteering to undertake a collaborative approach when offering employee volunteering opportunities for corporates.

The next corporate breakfast will be held in June. If you would like more information about corporate volunteering, please phone The Centre on 9261 3600.

National Parks and Wildlife Service (NSW) consultancy

The Centre for Volunteering and SVM have recently completed a consultancy for the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS is part of the Department of Environment and Conservation) to review the NPWS's volunteering program.

The Centre and SVM conducted the following five tasks:

1. Review of NPWS's current volunteering policy.
2. Volunteering bibliography: Various databases were searched to find bibliographical references to key articles, reports and reviews on the topic of volunteer management policy and guidelines. References include up-to-date approaches consistent with the Australian National Standards.
3. Volunteer trends paper: The paper focused on providing demographic information relevant to policy making and best practice. This information supports NPWS's volunteer policy and program development. The paper included general principles on changing volunteering patterns, volunteer motivations and retention of volunteers and how the environment/nature sector compares with other volunteering sectors.
4. Volunteer models: Several volunteer models (e.g. friends groups; nature keepers) were examined. An analysis was made on the benefits and costs of each. The purpose of this analysis was to:

   Source a range of feasible volunteer models for the NPWS context.
   
   Estimate the human and financial resources, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of such models.
   
   Outline changing trends in the volunteering sector (e.g. the rise of corporate volunteering, baby boomers and young people), and identify future trends.
   
   Specify the industrial relations issues associated with these various models.
   
   Identify and develop qualitative measures associated with these volunteer models.

5. Database matching for NPWS volunteer programs.

The findings of this consulting project are being collated by The Centre, SVM, NPWS and Eureka Strategic Research and will be written and published as a collaborative article on volunteering in the environment sector in the Australian Journal of Volunteering.

© The Centre for Volunteering 2007 | ABN 28 002 416 024
Level 2, 228 Pitt St, Sydney NSW 2000
T: 02 9261 3600 | F: 02 9261 4033 | E: info@volunteering.com.au
www.volunteering.com.au
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